Monet Painting Sells for Record $81.4 Million at Christie’s
- Billionaire Paul Allen’s Richter canvas fetched $25.6 million
- Phillips’s $111.2 million auction was up 66% from a year ago
Art Market Celebrates $1 Billion Week in New York City
Claude Monet’s grain stack painting fetched a record $81.4 million for the artist on Wednesday after a 14-minute bidding war.
The 1891 canvas, “Meule,” lifted Christie’s Impressionist and modern art evening sale to $246.3 million, a 69 percent jump from the similar auction a year ago. Christie’s also held a special auction last year of 20th century art, “The Artist’s Muse,” which hauled in almost half a billion dollars.