Collecting
Perelman’s Art Raises $145 Million, But T. Rex Steals Show
- T. Rex skeleton fetched $31.8 million at Christie’s auction
- A Cy Twombly painting from Perelman’s trove led the event
A painting by Cy Twombly from the collection of billionaire Ron Perelman led a $340.9 million auction at Christie’s, an off-season event that was live-streamed from New York Tuesday.
But the real surprise of the evening sale of 20th century art came at the very end. It wasn’t a painting, drawing or sculpture, but rather a 67-million-year-old fossil. Tyrannosaurus Rex Stan, named after the paleontologist who discovered it in 1987, fetched $31.8 million, almost four times the high estimate and beating all but two lots.