NEW YORK - Paintings and sculptures from the collection of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen were auctioned off for a historic $1-billion, Christie's auction house said, with records set for works by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Gauguin, Seurat and Klimt.
Five paintings entered the exclusive club of works of art sold for more than $100-million at auction, the New York auction house said, in a sign that the art market continues to grow despite economic uncertainties related to the war in Ukraine and inflation.
The most expensive piece of the evening, Georges Seurat's 1888 work "Les Poseuses, Ensemble (small version)", a renowned work of pointillism, fetched $149.24-million, including fees, Christie's said.
The auction house had announced that all the proceeds would be donated to charity.
Wednesday's auction sold 60 of 150 lots, with the rest to be sold on Thursday.
The value of the collection has already surpassed the record for the Macklowe collection, named after a wealthy New York couple, which fetched $922-million at competitor Sotheby's earlier this spring.
- Diverse collection -
The sale on Wednesday totalled about $1.5-billion, according to an AFP calculation, and included French painter Paul Cezanne’s "La Montagne Sainte-Victoire" -- which fetched $137.8-million, almost double the artist's auction record.
A work by Vincent Van Gogh, "Orchard with Cypresses," broke the Dutch artist's previous record, bringing in $117.2-million.
A painting from Paul Gauguin's Tahitian period, "Maternity II," brought $105.7-million.
Austrian painter Gustav Klimt's "Birch Forest" brought in $104.6-million.
The billion mark was surpassed on lot number 32, an Alberto Giacometti sculpture, "Woman of Venice III," which sold for $25-million.
The auction was a testament to the quality of Allen's collection, which included a diverse range of works from the German-American painter-sculptor Max Ernst, whose sculpture "The King Playing with the Queen" sold for $24.3-million, to the American Jasper Johns, one of the few living artists featured in the collection, whose lithograph "Small False Start" sold for $55.35-million.