A work by Magritte has sold at auction for over $121 million

A painting by René Magritte has reached an auction record for the surrealist artist, selling for over 121 million dollars at Christie’s in New York. The work entitled “Empire of Light”, dating back to 1954, was valued at 95 million dollars. The previous record for a work by Magritte (1898-1967) was $79 million, set in 2022. After the very close bidding ritual, which lasted almost 10 minutes, “Empire of Light” sold for 121,160. 000 dollars, “reaching a world record price for the artist and for a surrealist work of art at auction”, according to the house Christie’s.

The painting, which depicts a house at night, illuminated by a street lamp, under a bright blue sky, is part of a series by the Belgian artist that shows the interaction between shadow and light. “Empire of Light” was part of the private collection of Mica Ertegun, an interior designer who fled communist Romania to settle in the United States, where she became an influential figure in the art world. She died in late 2023 and was married to the late Ahmet Ertegun, the music mogul who founded the Atlantic Records label.

Christie’s numbers

The sale of the Magritte painting was an expected highlight of this week’s fall selling season in New York, at a time when the art market has slowed compared to last year. Christie’s, controlled by Artemis, the investment holding company owned by the Pinault family, said sales totaled $2.1 billion in the first half of this year. This is a decline for the second consecutive year, after a peak of $4.1 billion in 2022, as the world emerged from the coronavirus pandemic. During the same Christie’s auction on Tuesday 19 November, a famous 1964 painting of a service station by 86-year-old Ed Ruscha, entitled “Standard Station, Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half”, sold for 68, $26 million, setting a new auction record for the American pop artist.