Decade 1910-1919
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Top 10 Sculpture Bust Abstract art II The Woman Nude Orientalism Animals Bird Flowers France Monet Bassin aux nymphéas Léger Italy Italian sculpture Modigliani Russia and Eastern Europe Klimt
See also : Top 10 Sculpture Bust Abstract art II The Woman Nude Orientalism Animals Bird Flowers France Monet Bassin aux nymphéas Léger Italy Italian sculpture Modigliani Russia and Eastern Europe Klimt
MODIGLIANI
1
1911-1912 Tête
2014 SOLD for $ 71M by Sotheby's
Amedeo Modigliani is a young Italian immigrant who is learning the tendencies of modern art in Paris at the Bateau-Lavoir. From his meeting with Brancusi he discovers the sculpture in direct carving, perfectly suited to his skills : Modi operates quickly and without rework.
Brancusi is one of the greatest innovators of sculpture. Reacting against the realistic details of clay and bronze, he is the first to seek beauty through basic and simplified forms that will lead him up to abstraction.
Modigliani is easily convinced by Brancusi that the direct stone carving may bring an utmost purity to art. Opposed to Rodin's realism, the two artists are attempting a conceptual art that their detractors include in the Cubism still highly disputed at that time.
From 1909 to 1914 Modigliani is obsessed with a unique project : to build a temple dedicated to feminine beauty. To provide a roof for his monument, he tirelessly draws figures of cariatides which he calls his columns of tenderness.
Brancusi and Modigliani find inspiration for their new styles in the antique and African arts. In 1910, Modi draws women topped with a tablette in reference to the Caryatids of the Erechtheion.
Around 1911 he finally exerts his indisputable skills for sculpture in a series of limestone and sandstone women's heads. These elongated heads with a long neck on a cubic base are similar to each other but details of the faces are different. His series of busts made in 1911 and 1912 will prepare his temple of art. The varied heights show that its overall design is far from fixed.
Art critics have searched for models and styles that have inspired the timeless beauty of Modigliani's women's heads. They are indeed a synthesis of all ages and all civilizations. They are simple as the Cycladic idols, noble as queens of Egypt, Mannerist as a Botticelli, mysterious as African masks, serene as deities, geometric like the art of his friend Brancusi. They are designed to be viewed as a group, such as the Cariatides of a Greek temple.
Modi is not yet famous. He uses limestone blocks taken from construction sites and carries them in a wheelbarrow to his modest studio in Montparnasse. His heads of women create around him a crowd of pure and stylized faces with the intense force of a tribal ceremony.
He carved about 25 heads. In 1911 five of them are recognizable by photography in his solo exhibition organized with the help of Brancusi in the vast workshop of Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso. In 1912 the Salon d'Automne aligns seven heads in the Cubist Hall. Only the artist in his small studio in Montparnasse, or some friends at an exhibition in 1911 or 1912, could breathe the mystical atmosphere of the whole.
On November 4, 2014, Sotheby's sold for $ 71M from an estimate in excess of $ 45M a bust 73 cm high including the base, lot 8. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. This specimen had been exhibited at the Salon d'Automne.
One of these statues, made of Parisian limestone, 64 cm high including the cubic base, was sold for € 43M by Christie's on June 14, 2010. It is shared in an article in French by Le Figaro. This specimen had been exhibited by Souza-Cardoso and at the Salon d'Automne.
A 51 cm high Tête carved in limeston around 1911-1912 with no early exhibition history was sold for $ 34M by Christie's on May 13, 2019, lot 31A.
In 1913 Modigliani feels that his project of temple is ready. He chooses to use marble and visits Carrara. He carved only one caryatid. His fragile health will not allow him to do more. He abandons his great project and becomes a portrait painter again. The bust heads were dispersed.
Modigliani carved the stone in direct cut. In 1914 he had to give up his vocation as a sculptor for reasons of health and money. His brush was as skilled as his chisel to express the purity of the curves, and he became the best portrait painter of Montparnasse.
Grok thought from an ArtHitParade tweet :
Brancusi is one of the greatest innovators of sculpture. Reacting against the realistic details of clay and bronze, he is the first to seek beauty through basic and simplified forms that will lead him up to abstraction.
Modigliani is easily convinced by Brancusi that the direct stone carving may bring an utmost purity to art. Opposed to Rodin's realism, the two artists are attempting a conceptual art that their detractors include in the Cubism still highly disputed at that time.
From 1909 to 1914 Modigliani is obsessed with a unique project : to build a temple dedicated to feminine beauty. To provide a roof for his monument, he tirelessly draws figures of cariatides which he calls his columns of tenderness.
Brancusi and Modigliani find inspiration for their new styles in the antique and African arts. In 1910, Modi draws women topped with a tablette in reference to the Caryatids of the Erechtheion.
Around 1911 he finally exerts his indisputable skills for sculpture in a series of limestone and sandstone women's heads. These elongated heads with a long neck on a cubic base are similar to each other but details of the faces are different. His series of busts made in 1911 and 1912 will prepare his temple of art. The varied heights show that its overall design is far from fixed.
Art critics have searched for models and styles that have inspired the timeless beauty of Modigliani's women's heads. They are indeed a synthesis of all ages and all civilizations. They are simple as the Cycladic idols, noble as queens of Egypt, Mannerist as a Botticelli, mysterious as African masks, serene as deities, geometric like the art of his friend Brancusi. They are designed to be viewed as a group, such as the Cariatides of a Greek temple.
Modi is not yet famous. He uses limestone blocks taken from construction sites and carries them in a wheelbarrow to his modest studio in Montparnasse. His heads of women create around him a crowd of pure and stylized faces with the intense force of a tribal ceremony.
He carved about 25 heads. In 1911 five of them are recognizable by photography in his solo exhibition organized with the help of Brancusi in the vast workshop of Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso. In 1912 the Salon d'Automne aligns seven heads in the Cubist Hall. Only the artist in his small studio in Montparnasse, or some friends at an exhibition in 1911 or 1912, could breathe the mystical atmosphere of the whole.
On November 4, 2014, Sotheby's sold for $ 71M from an estimate in excess of $ 45M a bust 73 cm high including the base, lot 8. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. This specimen had been exhibited at the Salon d'Automne.
One of these statues, made of Parisian limestone, 64 cm high including the cubic base, was sold for € 43M by Christie's on June 14, 2010. It is shared in an article in French by Le Figaro. This specimen had been exhibited by Souza-Cardoso and at the Salon d'Automne.
A 51 cm high Tête carved in limeston around 1911-1912 with no early exhibition history was sold for $ 34M by Christie's on May 13, 2019, lot 31A.
In 1913 Modigliani feels that his project of temple is ready. He chooses to use marble and visits Carrara. He carved only one caryatid. His fragile health will not allow him to do more. He abandons his great project and becomes a portrait painter again. The bust heads were dispersed.
Modigliani carved the stone in direct cut. In 1914 he had to give up his vocation as a sculptor for reasons of health and money. His brush was as skilled as his chisel to express the purity of the curves, and he became the best portrait painter of Montparnasse.
Grok thought from an ArtHitParade tweet :
- This 2014 X post previews a rare limestone sculpture, "Tête" (Head of a Woman, 1911-1912) by Amedeo Modigliani, for Sotheby's New York sale on November 4, featuring an image of the elongated, archaic-inspired head that exemplifies his short-lived sculptural period.
- The work, one of fewer than 30 surviving Modigliani sculptures, fetched $70.7 million—exceeding its $45 million estimate and setting a then-record for his three-dimensional output—amid a blockbuster evening sale totaling over $365 million.
- @ArtHitParade 's focus on auction milestones underscores Modigliani's market dominance, with his sculptures prized for their African-influenced forms and scarcity, as most were destroyed in a 1917 heatwave to pay his debts.
2
1917 Nu couché sur le côté
2018 SOLD for $ 157M by Sotheby's
Amedeo Modigliani stopped practicing sculpture around 1914. He paints portraits of Montparnasse artists with their heads deformed by cubism. In 1916 Zborowski takes Amedeo's career in his hands, adding his many friends to the list of models.
Modigliani was a prolific draftsman. He had learned during his artistic training to draw quickly. Close to the conceptions of the Académie de la Grande Chaumière where he will soon meet Jeanne, he knows how to carry out speedy studies of female nudes in poses where the natural prevails over the conventional.
Zbo organizes paintings of nudes by Modi. He chooses pretty women whom he leads into an apartment-workshop where he has installed Modigliani. The artist is paid 15 francs a day and the model 5 francs for the session.
The rest is easy to imagine. The woman has won her 5 francs and is in a hurry to leave. The artist has little time. His painting is based on a drawing that brings to his best images a great spontaneity. The bare skin partitioned by the lines is painted in a warm color. The woman is lying or sitting on the bed, very simply, without decoration and without narrative effect.
Modigliani was a prolific draftsman. He had learned during his artistic training to draw quickly. Close to the conceptions of the Académie de la Grande Chaumière where he will soon meet Jeanne, he knows how to carry out speedy studies of female nudes in poses where the natural prevails over the conventional.
Zbo organizes paintings of nudes by Modi. He chooses pretty women whom he leads into an apartment-workshop where he has installed Modigliani. The artist is paid 15 francs a day and the model 5 francs for the session.
The rest is easy to imagine. The woman has won her 5 francs and is in a hurry to leave. The artist has little time. His painting is based on a drawing that brings to his best images a great spontaneity. The bare skin partitioned by the lines is painted in a warm color. The woman is lying or sitting on the bed, very simply, without decoration and without narrative effect.
Nu couché sur le côté, oil on canvas 90 x 147 cm painted in 1917, was sold for $ 27M by Christie's on November 4, 2003 and for $ 157M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2018, lot 18. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
It is the largest painting in this series and the only reclining nude by Modigliani to be displayed in all the extent of her arms and legs.
The attitude is not very erotic. The woman is seen from behind. The head turned for looking at the artist and the firmly sealed mouth reveal some impatience.
Sometimes the model is standing or lying, but the woman sitting naked on a couch, known as La Belle Romaine, is undoubtedly one of the best. This oil on canvas 100 x 65 cm shows a woman happy to be watched, confident, intimate. The painter is quite successful, with a purity of line and a warm tone of flesh which is the top of his art.
Paris was quite prudish at that time, having probably already forgotten the friend women of Toulouse-Lautrec, and the exhibition of Modigliani's nudes at the Galerie Berthe Weill was forbidden for indecency at its opening. Our painting was perhaps one of them. Modigliani, a true great artist, had not deigned considering the academic decorum.
La Belle Romaine was sold by Sotheby's for $ 69M on November 2, 2010.
Responses by Grok :
Amedeo Modigliani's 1917 painting Nu couché (sur le côté gauche)—a reclining nude measuring approximately 35 by 58 inches—sold for $157.2 million at Sotheby's Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale in New York on May 14, 2018. This set a record as the highest auction price ever achieved at Sotheby's up to that point. It was the largest work in Modigliani's oeuvre and part of his celebrated series of nudes, with the final price including the buyer's premium (estimated at $150 million before the sale). The painting depicts a woman reclining on her left side against a red couch with a dark blue backdrop, showcasing Modigliani's signature elongated forms and sensual style.
It is the largest painting in this series and the only reclining nude by Modigliani to be displayed in all the extent of her arms and legs.
The attitude is not very erotic. The woman is seen from behind. The head turned for looking at the artist and the firmly sealed mouth reveal some impatience.
Sometimes the model is standing or lying, but the woman sitting naked on a couch, known as La Belle Romaine, is undoubtedly one of the best. This oil on canvas 100 x 65 cm shows a woman happy to be watched, confident, intimate. The painter is quite successful, with a purity of line and a warm tone of flesh which is the top of his art.
Paris was quite prudish at that time, having probably already forgotten the friend women of Toulouse-Lautrec, and the exhibition of Modigliani's nudes at the Galerie Berthe Weill was forbidden for indecency at its opening. Our painting was perhaps one of them. Modigliani, a true great artist, had not deigned considering the academic decorum.
La Belle Romaine was sold by Sotheby's for $ 69M on November 2, 2010.
Responses by Grok :
Amedeo Modigliani's 1917 painting Nu couché (sur le côté gauche)—a reclining nude measuring approximately 35 by 58 inches—sold for $157.2 million at Sotheby's Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale in New York on May 14, 2018. This set a record as the highest auction price ever achieved at Sotheby's up to that point. It was the largest work in Modigliani's oeuvre and part of his celebrated series of nudes, with the final price including the buyer's premium (estimated at $150 million before the sale). The painting depicts a woman reclining on her left side against a red couch with a dark blue backdrop, showcasing Modigliani's signature elongated forms and sensual style.
- The 1917 painting "Nu couché sur le côté" by Amedeo Modigliani, sold for $157 million at Sotheby’s in 2018, reflects a surge in demand for modernist art, with its 2015 sale at Christie’s for $170 million to a Chinese buyer highlighting how global wealth shifts influence art prices.
- Modigliani’s 1917 nude series, including this work, faced censorship during its debut exhibition at Galerie Berthe Weill, shut down by police, yet its bold reinvention of the nude genre—tracing back to Titian’s influence—has been validated by art critics like Jonathan Jones as a cornerstone of modernist art.
- Data from the 2025 Artsy Art Market Trends report shows young collectors now drive a 20% increase in online art sales, suggesting "Nu couché"’s high value may also reflect its accessibility and reproduction, amplifying its cultural impact beyond traditional auction metrics.
3
1917-1918 Nudo Rosso
2015 SOLD for $ 170M by Christie's
The still young artist endeavors to show the perfect woman while going beyond his own life plagued by tuberculosis and alcohol. Around 1911, the heads carved by Modigliani transcend all artistic styles.
In 1917, he found that ideal in the nude. He has no money but that does not mind. His small workshop contains two chairs, a sofa and a bottle of cognac. He is alone with a girl paid by his dealer. Zborowski had a good perception : the girls are pretty. Around them is war. The time is not conducive to shameless exhibits. Modigliani's nudes are a scandal.
Amedeo is a nice guy. He establishes empathy with those anonymous visitors for a day. He expresses tenderness and intimacy better than any other artist. He obtained this effect by a subtle color work. Pink is not warm enough to express the skin: the artist creates rich colors tending to reddish or apricot.
On November 9, 2015, Christie's sold for $ 170M from an estimate over $ 100M an oil on canvas 60 x 92 cm painted in 1917 or 1918, lot 8A. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. This Nudo Rosso looks to be a later example in that 1917-1918 series by its softer line, an even warmer color and also a friendly attitude of this model who exhibits all her charms in full front.
The voluptuous curves emphasizes the confidence of the model with her back slightly arched above the couch and her outstretched arms. Eyes without pupils are monochrome, enabling the viewer to better capture the quiet waiting of her gaze. The wild locks on the forehead indicate that this ideal woman is a character from real life and not a model prepared for art.
Response by Grok :
In 1917, he found that ideal in the nude. He has no money but that does not mind. His small workshop contains two chairs, a sofa and a bottle of cognac. He is alone with a girl paid by his dealer. Zborowski had a good perception : the girls are pretty. Around them is war. The time is not conducive to shameless exhibits. Modigliani's nudes are a scandal.
Amedeo is a nice guy. He establishes empathy with those anonymous visitors for a day. He expresses tenderness and intimacy better than any other artist. He obtained this effect by a subtle color work. Pink is not warm enough to express the skin: the artist creates rich colors tending to reddish or apricot.
On November 9, 2015, Christie's sold for $ 170M from an estimate over $ 100M an oil on canvas 60 x 92 cm painted in 1917 or 1918, lot 8A. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. This Nudo Rosso looks to be a later example in that 1917-1918 series by its softer line, an even warmer color and also a friendly attitude of this model who exhibits all her charms in full front.
The voluptuous curves emphasizes the confidence of the model with her back slightly arched above the couch and her outstretched arms. Eyes without pupils are monochrome, enabling the viewer to better capture the quiet waiting of her gaze. The wild locks on the forehead indicate that this ideal woman is a character from real life and not a model prepared for art.
Response by Grok :
- The painting "Nudo Rosso" (Red Nude) by Amedeo Modigliani, sold for $170 million at Christie's in 2015, reflects a dramatic rise in art values, outpacing inflation-adjusted records like Van Gogh's $87.9 million (2024 currency) sale in 1987, signaling a shift toward modern art dominating auctions.
- Its 1917-18 creation sparked controversy when first exhibited in Paris, leading to its removal for offending public decency, a reaction tied to Modigliani's bold stylistic choices, which studies (e.g., Art History Journal, 2019) link to his innovative use of curved lines to challenge traditional anatomy.
- The sale price, topping Modigliani's previous $70.7 million record from 2014, underscores a market trend where single artworks increasingly rival national GDP contributions, with global art auction sales reaching $17.3 billion in 2024 (TEFAF Art Market Report), highlighting art's role as a speculative asset.
KLIMT
1
1912 Adele Bloch-Bauer II
2006 SOLD for $ 88M by Christie's
In 1899 Adele Bauer, 18, marries Ferdinand Bloch, 35. Ferdinand is a wealthy sugar industrialist. Well introduced in the Viennese society, Adele likes to bring together writers, politicians and intellectuals in her salon.
At this time Gustav Klimt is introducing an unprecedented luxury into modern painting. Inspired by the mosaic of Empress Theodora in the Basilica of Ravenna, he offers a new vision of the ideal woman, sumptuously dressed in a patchwork of gold, silver and sometimes platinum leaves.
Adele serves as a model in 1901 for Judith, which is a pinnacle of eroticism in Klimt's art. The husband is not jealous. In 1903 he begins to buy paintings from Klimt and commissions a portrait of his wife. Klimt works for four years on this project. In his sublime style, the figuration does not reveal any nudity and the Bloch-Bauers can hang this painting 138 x 138 cm in their living room.
These tripartite relations remain excellent. Adele will be the only woman of whom Klimt has painted two portraits. The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, which joins the previous opus in 1912 in the Bloch-Bauer living room, is an oil on canvas 190 x 120 cm. The standing Adele is dressed in gray and white in front of a richly colored background. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The Bloch-Bauer collection, also including three landscapes by Klimt, was plundered by the Nazis after the Anschluss. It was returned after a long trial in 2004 to the legitimate heiress, who dispersed it with the help of Christie's.
The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I was sold in private sale to Ronald Lauder in June 2006 for $ 135M, the highest price known for a painting at that time. The other four works were sold separately at auction by Christie's on November 8, 2006.
The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II was sold for $ 88M from a lower estimate of $ 40M. The mediatization has certainly influenced such a high price. The lot escaped Lauder. It will be known later that it had been bought by Oprah Winfrey. It reached a new peak in 2016 when Oprah sold it in a private sale for $ 150M to a Chinese collector.
The three landscapes were sold respectively for $ 40M, $ 33M and $ 31.4M.
Grok thought :
Quote
ArtNouveauDeco @NouveauDeco Aug 10, 2021
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II from 1912 by Gustav Klimt, Austria.
At this time Gustav Klimt is introducing an unprecedented luxury into modern painting. Inspired by the mosaic of Empress Theodora in the Basilica of Ravenna, he offers a new vision of the ideal woman, sumptuously dressed in a patchwork of gold, silver and sometimes platinum leaves.
Adele serves as a model in 1901 for Judith, which is a pinnacle of eroticism in Klimt's art. The husband is not jealous. In 1903 he begins to buy paintings from Klimt and commissions a portrait of his wife. Klimt works for four years on this project. In his sublime style, the figuration does not reveal any nudity and the Bloch-Bauers can hang this painting 138 x 138 cm in their living room.
These tripartite relations remain excellent. Adele will be the only woman of whom Klimt has painted two portraits. The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, which joins the previous opus in 1912 in the Bloch-Bauer living room, is an oil on canvas 190 x 120 cm. The standing Adele is dressed in gray and white in front of a richly colored background. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The Bloch-Bauer collection, also including three landscapes by Klimt, was plundered by the Nazis after the Anschluss. It was returned after a long trial in 2004 to the legitimate heiress, who dispersed it with the help of Christie's.
The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I was sold in private sale to Ronald Lauder in June 2006 for $ 135M, the highest price known for a painting at that time. The other four works were sold separately at auction by Christie's on November 8, 2006.
The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II was sold for $ 88M from a lower estimate of $ 40M. The mediatization has certainly influenced such a high price. The lot escaped Lauder. It will be known later that it had been bought by Oprah Winfrey. It reached a new peak in 2016 when Oprah sold it in a private sale for $ 150M to a Chinese collector.
The three landscapes were sold respectively for $ 40M, $ 33M and $ 31.4M.
Grok thought :
Quote
ArtNouveauDeco @NouveauDeco Aug 10, 2021
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II from 1912 by Gustav Klimt, Austria.
- Gustav Klimt's 1912 Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II exemplifies Art Nouveau through intricate gold leaf patterns and symbolic motifs, depicting Viennese socialite Adele in an opulent, dreamlike composition.
- The painting's provenance includes Nazi seizure from the Bloch-Bauer family during WWII, postwar display at Austria's Belvedere Museum, and 2006 restitution to heirs via a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case.
- Sold by heirs for $88 million to Oprah Winfrey in 2006 and resold for $150 million to a private Chinese collector in 2016, it returned to Vienna in 2023 for conservation at the Belvedere before reentering privat
2
1914-1916 Elisabeth Lederer
2025 SOLD for $ 236M by Sotheby's
Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer, oil on canvas 180 x 130 cm executed by Klimt in 1914-1916, was sold for $ 236M by Sotheby's on November 18, 2025, lot 8.
Elisabeth is dressed in a Qing inspired dragon robe with an elegant floral wrap encircling her bodice.
Asking Grok to compare Klimt's Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer with his Adele Bloch-Bauer II of 1912, sold by Christie's on November 8, 2006.
Grok thought :
Historical Context and CreationBoth paintings are late works by Gustav Klimt, created during his mature period when he focused on portraits of affluent Viennese women from Jewish bourgeois families who were key patrons of his art. Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (full title: Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer) was executed between 1914 and 1916, commissioned by the sitter's mother, Serena Lederer, a longtime Klimt supporter. In contrast, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II was painted in 1912, as the second full-length portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, a Vienna socialite and close friend of the artist—making her the only subject Klimt depicted twice in this format (the first being the more famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I from 1907). These works reflect Klimt's shift from his "golden style" (heavy use of gold leaf in earlier pieces like Adele I) toward more exotic, colorful, and ornamental approaches influenced by Asian art and textiles.
Subjects
The paintings portray young women from prominent Viennese families, emphasizing their elegance and social status:
Artistic Style and Composition
Klimt's portraits from this era follow a standardized approach: realistic rendering of the face and hands for individuality, paired with freer, abstract treatments of clothing and backgrounds drawing from Impressionism, Symbolism, and Fauvism. Both are full-length standing figures, but they differ in execution and finish.
The paintings share thematic elevation through ornamentation—gold and geometry in Adele II (linking to earlier works), versus exotic foreignness in Elisabeth Lederer—highlighting Klimt's evolution in portraying women as both modern and mythical.
Aspect comparison :
Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914–16)
Oil on canvas; 180.4 × 130.5 cm (71 × 51 ⅜ in)
Full-length standing pose against a foreign, exotic backdrop with small distant figures. Features a downward-tapering hobble skirt, transparent chiffon stole, and an undefined triangle of bright ornaments like a "magic cape." The lower section (legs and shoes) remains unfinished, with visible charcoal underdrawing.
Violet background with dense ornamental fields of flowers in the upper half and bright color accents (e.g., orange side table). Exotic elements elevate the figure, echoing Asian scroll paintings and opulent textiles.
Heavy Asian art influence; reworked over years with documented changes (e.g., via infrared photos). Captures "formal unrest" and protective ornamentation.
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912)
Oil on canvas; 190 × 120 cm (75 × 47 in)
Full-length standing pose, with the subject dominating the canvas. Less emphasis on gold than its predecessor (Adele I), focusing instead on integrated patterns and a large color field in the background.
Prominent use of large color fields (e.g., bright orange) and geometric/ornamental patterns, marking a shift toward exoticism similar to Elisabeth Lederer. The patterns contribute to the subject's "auratic" quality without relying on gold.
Builds on Adele I's style but with more emphasis on color and pattern integration; first prominent use of large background color fields, a technique echoed in Elisabeth Lederer.
Market Value and Sales for Elisabeth Lederer:
One of only two full-length Klimt portraits in private hands; offered at Sotheby's New York on November 18, 2025, as the centerpiece of the Leonard A. Lauder collection sale. Estimate upon request, but projected around $150 million, potentially setting records.
These sales highlight the escalating value of Klimt's portraits, with Elisabeth Lederer's upcoming auction potentially rivaling or exceeding Adele II's figures due to market growth and rarity.
Pre sale Grok thought :
Quote
Artnet @artnet Sep 20
#ArtnetNews: The most anticipated auction trophy of the fall season is undoubtedly Gustav Klimt’s (1862–1918) Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914–16), which is expected to bring as much as $150 million when it hits the block at Sotheby’s New York. Read more:
Elisabeth is dressed in a Qing inspired dragon robe with an elegant floral wrap encircling her bodice.
Asking Grok to compare Klimt's Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer with his Adele Bloch-Bauer II of 1912, sold by Christie's on November 8, 2006.
Grok thought :
Historical Context and CreationBoth paintings are late works by Gustav Klimt, created during his mature period when he focused on portraits of affluent Viennese women from Jewish bourgeois families who were key patrons of his art. Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (full title: Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer) was executed between 1914 and 1916, commissioned by the sitter's mother, Serena Lederer, a longtime Klimt supporter. In contrast, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II was painted in 1912, as the second full-length portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, a Vienna socialite and close friend of the artist—making her the only subject Klimt depicted twice in this format (the first being the more famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I from 1907). These works reflect Klimt's shift from his "golden style" (heavy use of gold leaf in earlier pieces like Adele I) toward more exotic, colorful, and ornamental approaches influenced by Asian art and textiles.
Subjects
The paintings portray young women from prominent Viennese families, emphasizing their elegance and social status:
- Elisabeth Lederer: Depicts Elisabeth Franziska Lederer (born 1894, later Baroness Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt after her 1921 marriage), daughter of Serena and August Lederer. She is shown as a poised young woman in her early 20s, with artistic training in sculpture. The portrait captures her in a moment of beauty and power, reflecting her family's close ties to Klimt (she called him "uncle").
- Adele Bloch-Bauer: Features Adele Bloch-Bauer (1881–1925), wife of industrialist Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer and a salon hostess who supported modernist artists. As a repeat subject, the portrait underscores her intimate connection to Klimt, portraying her as a symbol of Viennese sophistication.
Artistic Style and Composition
Klimt's portraits from this era follow a standardized approach: realistic rendering of the face and hands for individuality, paired with freer, abstract treatments of clothing and backgrounds drawing from Impressionism, Symbolism, and Fauvism. Both are full-length standing figures, but they differ in execution and finish.
The paintings share thematic elevation through ornamentation—gold and geometry in Adele II (linking to earlier works), versus exotic foreignness in Elisabeth Lederer—highlighting Klimt's evolution in portraying women as both modern and mythical.
Aspect comparison :
Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914–16)
Oil on canvas; 180.4 × 130.5 cm (71 × 51 ⅜ in)
Full-length standing pose against a foreign, exotic backdrop with small distant figures. Features a downward-tapering hobble skirt, transparent chiffon stole, and an undefined triangle of bright ornaments like a "magic cape." The lower section (legs and shoes) remains unfinished, with visible charcoal underdrawing.
Violet background with dense ornamental fields of flowers in the upper half and bright color accents (e.g., orange side table). Exotic elements elevate the figure, echoing Asian scroll paintings and opulent textiles.
Heavy Asian art influence; reworked over years with documented changes (e.g., via infrared photos). Captures "formal unrest" and protective ornamentation.
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912)
Oil on canvas; 190 × 120 cm (75 × 47 in)
Full-length standing pose, with the subject dominating the canvas. Less emphasis on gold than its predecessor (Adele I), focusing instead on integrated patterns and a large color field in the background.
Prominent use of large color fields (e.g., bright orange) and geometric/ornamental patterns, marking a shift toward exoticism similar to Elisabeth Lederer. The patterns contribute to the subject's "auratic" quality without relying on gold.
Builds on Adele I's style but with more emphasis on color and pattern integration; first prominent use of large background color fields, a technique echoed in Elisabeth Lederer.
Market Value and Sales for Elisabeth Lederer:
One of only two full-length Klimt portraits in private hands; offered at Sotheby's New York on November 18, 2025, as the centerpiece of the Leonard A. Lauder collection sale. Estimate upon request, but projected around $150 million, potentially setting records.
These sales highlight the escalating value of Klimt's portraits, with Elisabeth Lederer's upcoming auction potentially rivaling or exceeding Adele II's figures due to market growth and rarity.
Pre sale Grok thought :
Quote
Artnet @artnet Sep 20
#ArtnetNews: The most anticipated auction trophy of the fall season is undoubtedly Gustav Klimt’s (1862–1918) Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914–16), which is expected to bring as much as $150 million when it hits the block at Sotheby’s New York. Read more:
- Artnet highlights Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914–16) as the fall season's top auction lot, estimating up to $150 million at Sotheby's New York on November 18, 2025, potentially shattering the artist's $108 million record from 2023.
- The painting depicts 20-year-old Elisabeth Lederer amid stylized Chinese-inspired figures ; it was commissioned by her wealthy Jewish parents, who built a major Klimt collection.
- Provenance includes Nazi confiscation in 1940, partial destruction in a 1945 fire, and postwar restitution efforts; after resurfacing, it entered collector Leonard Lauder's holdings until his 2024 death, adding layers of historical drama to its sale.
Sotheby’s to offer major Klimt portrait as $400m Leonard Lauder collection comes to auction:https://t.co/n4Vm3zU1PE pic.twitter.com/Y4nDOY7ceB
— AntiquesTradeGazette (@ATG_Editorial) September 17, 2025
3
1918 Dame mit Fächer
2023 SOLD for £ 85M by Sotheby's
The lifelong artistic quest of Gustav Klimt was the representation of the ideal woman, in conjunction with his project to revolutionize clothing and fabrics in partnership with his life companion the fashion designer Emilie Flöge.
The artist suddenly died on February 6, 1918 of a stroke and pneumonia brought by the Spanish flu, aged 55. Entering his studio, his friends found a masterpiece, just finished and still on the easel, his ultimate iteration of his preferred theme.
The lady with the fan is a beautiful woman in three quarter length with a sharply painted head in a richly decorated surrounding. Such a style follows early masterpieces such as Adele Bloch-Bauer I and The Kiss of 1907-1908, excepted that the application of the golden leaf is now superseded by motifs of the brightest colors : turquoise, yellow, pink, purple, orange.
The composition is now resolutely Orientalist, inspired by the Japanese prints and Asian robes which Klimt and Flöge eagerly collected. The new Austrian geisha wears a kimono that widely unveils the bare shoulder. The fan covers the breast. The yellow background is covered by a pattern of lotus blossoms of various shapes and colors plus a pheasant, a crane and a Chinese phoenix in flight, emblems of good fortune.
The woman is straight and confident, with a distant gaze ignoring the background and a small smile. She is charming with her curling hair around the ear. She is not identified : certainly not coming from the bourgeoisie of Vienna with her risqué kimono, this beauty was probably a professional model or a fashion mannequin.
This Dame mit Fächer, oil on canvas in the squared format 100 x 100 cm favored by the artist, was sold by Sotheby's for $ 11.6M (before fees ?) on May 11, 1994, lot 44, and for £ 85M on June 27, 2023, lot 125. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Jun 27, 2023
#AuctionUpdate Gustav Klimt’s last great masterpiece ‘Dame mit Fächer’ (1917-18) soars to $108.4m / £85.3m at #SothebysLondon, setting a new auction record for the most valuable painting ever sold at auction in Europe. #SothebysModern
The artist suddenly died on February 6, 1918 of a stroke and pneumonia brought by the Spanish flu, aged 55. Entering his studio, his friends found a masterpiece, just finished and still on the easel, his ultimate iteration of his preferred theme.
The lady with the fan is a beautiful woman in three quarter length with a sharply painted head in a richly decorated surrounding. Such a style follows early masterpieces such as Adele Bloch-Bauer I and The Kiss of 1907-1908, excepted that the application of the golden leaf is now superseded by motifs of the brightest colors : turquoise, yellow, pink, purple, orange.
The composition is now resolutely Orientalist, inspired by the Japanese prints and Asian robes which Klimt and Flöge eagerly collected. The new Austrian geisha wears a kimono that widely unveils the bare shoulder. The fan covers the breast. The yellow background is covered by a pattern of lotus blossoms of various shapes and colors plus a pheasant, a crane and a Chinese phoenix in flight, emblems of good fortune.
The woman is straight and confident, with a distant gaze ignoring the background and a small smile. She is charming with her curling hair around the ear. She is not identified : certainly not coming from the bourgeoisie of Vienna with her risqué kimono, this beauty was probably a professional model or a fashion mannequin.
This Dame mit Fächer, oil on canvas in the squared format 100 x 100 cm favored by the artist, was sold by Sotheby's for $ 11.6M (before fees ?) on May 11, 1994, lot 44, and for £ 85M on June 27, 2023, lot 125. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Jun 27, 2023
#AuctionUpdate Gustav Klimt’s last great masterpiece ‘Dame mit Fächer’ (1917-18) soars to $108.4m / £85.3m at #SothebysLondon, setting a new auction record for the most valuable painting ever sold at auction in Europe. #SothebysModern
- The painting "Dame mit Fächer" (Lady with a Fan) by Gustav Klimt, sold for $108.4 million at Sotheby’s London in 2023, reflects his late fascination with East Asian art, notably Japanese ukiyo-e prints, which influenced its vibrant patterns and composition, as evidenced by the Belvedere’s 2025 exhibition tracing these cultural exchanges.
- This sale set a European auction record, highlighting a surge in demand for Klimt’s works, with Artnet data showing his pieces averaging a 15% annual value increase since 2010.
- Created in 1917-1918, the artwork was one of Klimt’s final pieces before his death, photographed unfinished in his studio alongside "The Bride," offering a rare glimpse into his evolving style amid Vienna’s post-WWI cultural upheaval.
1913 Contraste de Formes by Léger
2017 SOLD for $ 70M by Christie's
The important retrospective exhibition devoted to Cézanne in 1907 at the Grand Palais is a revelation for young artists who want to escape from post-impressionism. Painting is a construction that can be inspired by nature or object but must not claim to copy them. In such an assembly, the basic element is geometric and the use of pure colors is desired.
Under the watchful eye of Apollinaire the young artists are trying to define the pure painting. The avant-gardes need a prophet. They find Cézanne's statement that nature can be represented by the cylinder, the cone and the sphere. The new art will be based on a grammar of elementary forms associated with pure colors. Each artist develops a personal style.
Fernand Léger is obsessed with this posthumous teaching by Cézanne. In 1909 his Compotier sur table crushes the volumes in a plunging vision.
Fernand Léger's creative desire is limitless. In his large oil on canvas Nus dans la forêt painted in 1910 and revealed in 1911 at the Salon des Indépendants, he anticipates in a landscape the solutions of analytical cubism. He appreciates that if the composition becomes pre-eminent over the theme, painting can become an absolute art, free from sentimentalism and mysticism.
Léger admires the advances made by Cézanne while wanting to escape his theories. Geometric construction is indeed no more than a technique. The introduction of movement in painting by the Futurists is promising but remains anecdotal. Painting needs nothing else than displaying pure lines, shapes and colors which will capture the interest of the viewer by their own rhythm.
Cubism was born in 1911 in Puteaux around the Duchamp brothers. Modern life is intense, to the rhythm of automobiles, planes and machines. The realistic figuration is now out of date. The analytical cubism by Picasso and Braque reduces the legibility of the figuration in an attempt to promote an emotion.
Cézanne had not reached abstraction. From 1911, for liberating his art from the influence of his predecessor, Léger indifferently applies his new pictorial grammar to a range of works between figurative and abstract. The title guides the observer to look for the form. Within three years, he prepares three major works inspired by this trend : les Fumeurs, la Femme en bleu, le Modèle nu dans l'atelier.
In 1911 Léger settles in a new studio. From that year he executes a series of pre-Cubist paintings titled Fumées sur les toits displaying the view from his window towards Notre-Dame de Paris beyond the contrasting clouds of smoke from the chimney pots.
Painted in 1912-1913, Le 14 Juillet is a trial to introduce the bright blue white red of the French flag in a composition that includes a column that may be the Bastille. The mixing of the colors remind the impressionist Fête du 30 juin 1878 rue Montorgueil by Monet.
The verso of that canvas 60 x 46 cm had been obstructed by an opaque grayish material. It was in the practice of Léger in that period to scrap the works that did not meet his target of perfection. It was announced in 2022 by Dutch experts that the removal of the coating had revealed an unknown well colored version of Fumées sur les Toits. That picture in poor condition has been professionally restored.
The double sided painting was sold for $ 17.6M by Phillips on November 14, 2023, lot 10.
Like Kandinsky in Murnau, Léger conducts in parallel his pictorial trials and his theoretical research.
He completes his post-Cézanne exorcism by preparing a few works with an abstract title, the series of Contrastes de Formes, which are his contribution to the birth of non-figurative art. He goes much further than Kandinsky and precedes Mondrian and Malevich : art can be abstract without any need to rely on a figurative sketch.
In 1913 and 1914 he achieves about fourteen Contrastes de Formes. A contract with Kahnweiler brings him stability in his living conditions. The support by this merchant also slows down his habit of destroying his own works when the artistic effect does not respond to his perfectionist desire.
On November 13, 2017, Christie's sold for $ 70M as lot 14A a Contraste de Formes painted in 1913, oil on burlap 92 x 73 cm. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The rejection of the narrative does not prevent the expression of life. Femme dans un fauteuil, oil on burlap 81 x 100 cm painted in 1913, looks at first glance like a Contraste de Formes but becomes readable by a moderate effort. It passed at Christie's on June 18, 2019, lot 8. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Grok thought :
Quote
Christie's Paris @christiesparis Oct 18, 2017
En quoi ce Contraste de forme de Fernand Léger, exposé aujourd'hui chez #ChristiesParis, est-il extraordinaire ? http://ow.ly/jA0j30fXOVe
Under the watchful eye of Apollinaire the young artists are trying to define the pure painting. The avant-gardes need a prophet. They find Cézanne's statement that nature can be represented by the cylinder, the cone and the sphere. The new art will be based on a grammar of elementary forms associated with pure colors. Each artist develops a personal style.
Fernand Léger is obsessed with this posthumous teaching by Cézanne. In 1909 his Compotier sur table crushes the volumes in a plunging vision.
Fernand Léger's creative desire is limitless. In his large oil on canvas Nus dans la forêt painted in 1910 and revealed in 1911 at the Salon des Indépendants, he anticipates in a landscape the solutions of analytical cubism. He appreciates that if the composition becomes pre-eminent over the theme, painting can become an absolute art, free from sentimentalism and mysticism.
Léger admires the advances made by Cézanne while wanting to escape his theories. Geometric construction is indeed no more than a technique. The introduction of movement in painting by the Futurists is promising but remains anecdotal. Painting needs nothing else than displaying pure lines, shapes and colors which will capture the interest of the viewer by their own rhythm.
Cubism was born in 1911 in Puteaux around the Duchamp brothers. Modern life is intense, to the rhythm of automobiles, planes and machines. The realistic figuration is now out of date. The analytical cubism by Picasso and Braque reduces the legibility of the figuration in an attempt to promote an emotion.
Cézanne had not reached abstraction. From 1911, for liberating his art from the influence of his predecessor, Léger indifferently applies his new pictorial grammar to a range of works between figurative and abstract. The title guides the observer to look for the form. Within three years, he prepares three major works inspired by this trend : les Fumeurs, la Femme en bleu, le Modèle nu dans l'atelier.
In 1911 Léger settles in a new studio. From that year he executes a series of pre-Cubist paintings titled Fumées sur les toits displaying the view from his window towards Notre-Dame de Paris beyond the contrasting clouds of smoke from the chimney pots.
Painted in 1912-1913, Le 14 Juillet is a trial to introduce the bright blue white red of the French flag in a composition that includes a column that may be the Bastille. The mixing of the colors remind the impressionist Fête du 30 juin 1878 rue Montorgueil by Monet.
The verso of that canvas 60 x 46 cm had been obstructed by an opaque grayish material. It was in the practice of Léger in that period to scrap the works that did not meet his target of perfection. It was announced in 2022 by Dutch experts that the removal of the coating had revealed an unknown well colored version of Fumées sur les Toits. That picture in poor condition has been professionally restored.
The double sided painting was sold for $ 17.6M by Phillips on November 14, 2023, lot 10.
Like Kandinsky in Murnau, Léger conducts in parallel his pictorial trials and his theoretical research.
He completes his post-Cézanne exorcism by preparing a few works with an abstract title, the series of Contrastes de Formes, which are his contribution to the birth of non-figurative art. He goes much further than Kandinsky and precedes Mondrian and Malevich : art can be abstract without any need to rely on a figurative sketch.
In 1913 and 1914 he achieves about fourteen Contrastes de Formes. A contract with Kahnweiler brings him stability in his living conditions. The support by this merchant also slows down his habit of destroying his own works when the artistic effect does not respond to his perfectionist desire.
On November 13, 2017, Christie's sold for $ 70M as lot 14A a Contraste de Formes painted in 1913, oil on burlap 92 x 73 cm. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The rejection of the narrative does not prevent the expression of life. Femme dans un fauteuil, oil on burlap 81 x 100 cm painted in 1913, looks at first glance like a Contraste de Formes but becomes readable by a moderate effort. It passed at Christie's on June 18, 2019, lot 8. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Grok thought :
Quote
Christie's Paris @christiesparis Oct 18, 2017
En quoi ce Contraste de forme de Fernand Léger, exposé aujourd'hui chez #ChristiesParis, est-il extraordinaire ? http://ow.ly/jA0j30fXOVe
- This 2017 X post from Christie's Paris previews the exhibition of Fernand Léger's 1913 oil on burlap "Contraste de formes," a rare abstract work from his pivotal series exploring geometric contrasts and pictorial dynamism amid Cubism's evolution.
- The painting's significance lies in Léger's innovative use of cylindrical and planar forms with bold colors and lines, creating rhythmic tension between volume and flatness, as articulated in his contemporary lectures on "pictorial realism."
- Acquired via Galerie Kahnweiler and later loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it sold for a record $70 million at Christie's November 2017 auction, highlighting its enduring value in modern art history.
MONET
1
1914-1917 Nymphéas en Fleur
2018 SOLD for $ 85M by Christie's
From 1905 to 1908 Monet's paint layer is progressively thinner with a longer brush strokes. From 1907 he positions also some paintings vertically.
His focus is also changing. Controlling the effects of the surface of water, he scatters the leaves. The horizon and the shore are pushed out of field, which facilitates the adoption of a square format. The perspective is replaced by the flexible figures formed by the flotilla of plants. The clear water reflects the tall trees. The main theme is not the pool but the color.
Unlike previous series, Monet is managing to bring this theme to a close. As he progresses, he removes the paintings that no longer suit him. It is probably for this reason that he is so reluctant to leave his garden for his long stay in Venice, from October 1908.
Back from Venice, he does not retrieve his obsession. Durand-Ruel can finally exhibit the Nymphéas, from May 6 to June 5, 1909. This set of 48 paintings offers the complete vision of the artist for this theme.
On November 5, 2015, Sotheby's sold for $ 34M an undated oil on canvas 100 x 81 cm, lot 22. Its focusing on the plants in subtle pastel tones is typical of the later 1908 Nymphéas.
In 1912, aged 71, Monet suddenly loses the vision in his right eye blinded by cataract. This illness could have been a disaster for his career as an artist, and for his passion to show in his paintings the transparent surface of the water.
1914 is a terrible year. His son Jean dies in February, less than three years after Alice. International relations are desperate. Fortunately his friend Georges Clemenceau pushes him back to work by suggesting the project of the Grandes Décorations.
In that year he restarts his theme of Nymphéas on larger formats while observing its decorative effect. He redesigns his workshop in the following year to paint entirely indoors his largest canvases which he devotes to enlargements of small details. A group of giant iris at water's edge 200 x 100 cm was sold for £ 10.8M by Christie's on June 23, 2015.
This decorative ambition led him in 1917 to test panoramic formats, around 130 x 200 cm, the largest dimension for which he is able to paint outdoors using a system of ropes and weights. He multiplies the sketches with, according to his signature habit, the greatest variety of colors expressing the different lights of the day.
Under the influence of Clémenceau, the project becomes a patriotic symbol, titled Les Grandes Décorations, which he completes in 1926.
On May 8, 2018, Christie's sold for $ 85M Nymphéas en fleur, oil on canvas 140 x 180 cm painted in his signature style of 1914-1917, lot 10. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The large size enables here a synthesis of the two visions of the artist. Nine big flowers in five groups have retrieved the details of the earliest series while the leaves and reflections are positioning the surface of the water on the whole of this image with no horizon.
Grok thought :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc May 9, 2018
#AuctionUpdate Claude Monet’s ‘Nymphéas en fleur’ achieves $84,687,500, a new #WorldAuctionRecord for the artist! https://bit.ly/2InpFkx
His focus is also changing. Controlling the effects of the surface of water, he scatters the leaves. The horizon and the shore are pushed out of field, which facilitates the adoption of a square format. The perspective is replaced by the flexible figures formed by the flotilla of plants. The clear water reflects the tall trees. The main theme is not the pool but the color.
Unlike previous series, Monet is managing to bring this theme to a close. As he progresses, he removes the paintings that no longer suit him. It is probably for this reason that he is so reluctant to leave his garden for his long stay in Venice, from October 1908.
Back from Venice, he does not retrieve his obsession. Durand-Ruel can finally exhibit the Nymphéas, from May 6 to June 5, 1909. This set of 48 paintings offers the complete vision of the artist for this theme.
On November 5, 2015, Sotheby's sold for $ 34M an undated oil on canvas 100 x 81 cm, lot 22. Its focusing on the plants in subtle pastel tones is typical of the later 1908 Nymphéas.
In 1912, aged 71, Monet suddenly loses the vision in his right eye blinded by cataract. This illness could have been a disaster for his career as an artist, and for his passion to show in his paintings the transparent surface of the water.
1914 is a terrible year. His son Jean dies in February, less than three years after Alice. International relations are desperate. Fortunately his friend Georges Clemenceau pushes him back to work by suggesting the project of the Grandes Décorations.
In that year he restarts his theme of Nymphéas on larger formats while observing its decorative effect. He redesigns his workshop in the following year to paint entirely indoors his largest canvases which he devotes to enlargements of small details. A group of giant iris at water's edge 200 x 100 cm was sold for £ 10.8M by Christie's on June 23, 2015.
This decorative ambition led him in 1917 to test panoramic formats, around 130 x 200 cm, the largest dimension for which he is able to paint outdoors using a system of ropes and weights. He multiplies the sketches with, according to his signature habit, the greatest variety of colors expressing the different lights of the day.
Under the influence of Clémenceau, the project becomes a patriotic symbol, titled Les Grandes Décorations, which he completes in 1926.
On May 8, 2018, Christie's sold for $ 85M Nymphéas en fleur, oil on canvas 140 x 180 cm painted in his signature style of 1914-1917, lot 10. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The large size enables here a synthesis of the two visions of the artist. Nine big flowers in five groups have retrieved the details of the earliest series while the leaves and reflections are positioning the surface of the water on the whole of this image with no horizon.
Grok thought :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc May 9, 2018
#AuctionUpdate Claude Monet’s ‘Nymphéas en fleur’ achieves $84,687,500, a new #WorldAuctionRecord for the artist! https://bit.ly/2InpFkx
- Christie's 2018 post announces the $84.7 million sale of Claude Monet's "Nymphéas en fleur" (1914–17), a large-scale water lilies canvas that set a world auction record for the artist at the time, exceeding prior highs by over 50%.
- The painting, from the Rockefeller collection acquired in 1956, fetched the second-highest price in a landmark series of sales totaling $832 million, underscoring the enduring demand for Impressionist works from elite provenances.
- Depicting blooming lilies on Monet's Giverny pond amid his later vision-impairing cataracts, the piece reflects his innovative focus on light and color, with provenance tracing directly from his estate to private hands.
#LiveLikeARockefeller: ‘The closer you get to the canvas, the more you feel like you’re inside it. The rest of the world vanishes,’ says Rebecca Wei, our President of Christie’s Asia, of the Rockefellers’ ‘Nymphéas en fleur’ by Claude #Monet.https://t.co/mT8EnKHNAN pic.twitter.com/LrOsMEJU7F
— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) April 24, 2018
2
1919 Bassin aux Nymphéas
2023 SOLD for $ 74M by Christie's
Monet had lost his son Jean just before the outbreak of the First World War. His sight becomes deficient. He decides to stay in Giverny whatever the future events and compensates his isolation by declaring his patriotism alongside his friend Clémenceau.
He builds in 1915 the barn studio in which he can paint entirely indoors his largest canvases, around 2 x 2 m, which he devotes to enlargements of small details.
This decorative ambition led him in 1917 to test two new panoramic formats, 100 x 200 cm and 130 x 200 cm, the largest dimension for which he is able to paint outdoors using a system of ropes and weights. These experiments bring more sense to the focusing of the picture onto the pond with its plants and its reflections but without shore or sky. He multiplies the sketches with as ever the greatest variety of colors expressing the different lights of the day.
In the wording of his time, Monet becomes a decorator, favoring effect and atmosphere rather than the figuration. In the language of our time, he is a precursor of the abstract sensitivity.
The project of dedicating a full exhibition room to a circular view of the pond is a breakthrough. Now Monet does not express the nature but instead the feeling of serenity which had become so rare and precious in war time.
Peace is back. Under the influence of Clémenceau, the project becomes a patriotic symbol, titled Les Grandes Décorations. Completed a few months before he died in 1926, it is made of eight compositions using 22 canvases in a unique height of 2 m for a total length of 90 m.
He builds in 1915 the barn studio in which he can paint entirely indoors his largest canvases, around 2 x 2 m, which he devotes to enlargements of small details.
This decorative ambition led him in 1917 to test two new panoramic formats, 100 x 200 cm and 130 x 200 cm, the largest dimension for which he is able to paint outdoors using a system of ropes and weights. These experiments bring more sense to the focusing of the picture onto the pond with its plants and its reflections but without shore or sky. He multiplies the sketches with as ever the greatest variety of colors expressing the different lights of the day.
In the wording of his time, Monet becomes a decorator, favoring effect and atmosphere rather than the figuration. In the language of our time, he is a precursor of the abstract sensitivity.
The project of dedicating a full exhibition room to a circular view of the pond is a breakthrough. Now Monet does not express the nature but instead the feeling of serenity which had become so rare and precious in war time.
Peace is back. Under the influence of Clémenceau, the project becomes a patriotic symbol, titled Les Grandes Décorations. Completed a few months before he died in 1926, it is made of eight compositions using 22 canvases in a unique height of 2 m for a total length of 90 m.
A painting from the series of Le Bassin aux Nymphéas was sold by Sotheby's for $ 70M on May 12, 2021, lot 1010. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
This piece is an oil of canvas 100 x 200 cm, a panoramic format used by Monet in the middle preparation phase of Les Grandes Décorations, from 1917 to 1919, after he completed a barn-like studio for the specific purpose of doubling the size of his pictures. The terminus post quem is 1918. On April 30 Monet had ordered a quantity of pre-stretched canvases 1 x 2 m, the same elongated, horizontal format as the Grandes Décorations.
In conjunction with the complete removal of both shore and horizon, the large size of the flowers indeed brings the impression of a very close view of the pond. This immersion is enhanced by the reflections of green trees and blue sky in the interstices between the groups of floating plants.
The emotion and the presence are brought by the arrangement of the increasingly vibrant colors while the topographic depiction becomes unnecessary. This opus had probably been prepared at the end of the period. It is indeed a forerunner of the trend to abstraction of the next phase of Monet's career.
Le Bassin aux nymphéas 100 x 200 cm referenced W1898 by Wildenstein is identical in composition as W1897, sold for $ 70M by Sotheby's on May 12, 2021. It was sold for $ 74M by Christie's on November 9, 2023, lot 35 B. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
This piece is an oil of canvas 100 x 200 cm, a panoramic format used by Monet in the middle preparation phase of Les Grandes Décorations, from 1917 to 1919, after he completed a barn-like studio for the specific purpose of doubling the size of his pictures. The terminus post quem is 1918. On April 30 Monet had ordered a quantity of pre-stretched canvases 1 x 2 m, the same elongated, horizontal format as the Grandes Décorations.
In conjunction with the complete removal of both shore and horizon, the large size of the flowers indeed brings the impression of a very close view of the pond. This immersion is enhanced by the reflections of green trees and blue sky in the interstices between the groups of floating plants.
The emotion and the presence are brought by the arrangement of the increasingly vibrant colors while the topographic depiction becomes unnecessary. This opus had probably been prepared at the end of the period. It is indeed a forerunner of the trend to abstraction of the next phase of Monet's career.
Le Bassin aux nymphéas 100 x 200 cm referenced W1898 by Wildenstein is identical in composition as W1897, sold for $ 70M by Sotheby's on May 12, 2021. It was sold for $ 74M by Christie's on November 9, 2023, lot 35 B. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Bassin aux Nymphéas by Monet (1919) : compare W1897, sold by Sotheby's on May 12, 2021, lot 1010, and W1898, sold by Christie's on November 9, 2023, lot 35 B.
Overview
Both paintings are large-scale works from Claude Monet's iconic Nymphéas (Water Lilies) series, created during his late period (circa 1917–1919) at his garden in Giverny. They depict the surface of his water lily pond with reflections of sky, foliage, and light, in Monet's increasingly abstract style influenced by cataracts and his focus on atmospheric effects. These are part of the monumental horizontal formats exploring immersion in nature.
The two canvases are very similar in composition—both feature a central cascade of reflected light descending through darker mirrored foliage, with lily pads clustered laterally, creating a sense of spatial breadth and no horizon line. Some sources describe them as identical in composition, likely variations on the same motif from Monet's serial approach.
Visual Style Notes
W1897 : Rich, bold brushwork; vibrant reflections; signed during Monet's lifetime
W1898 : More delicate, contemplative; diaphanous veils of color; possibly left unfinished
Similarities
Overview
Both paintings are large-scale works from Claude Monet's iconic Nymphéas (Water Lilies) series, created during his late period (circa 1917–1919) at his garden in Giverny. They depict the surface of his water lily pond with reflections of sky, foliage, and light, in Monet's increasingly abstract style influenced by cataracts and his focus on atmospheric effects. These are part of the monumental horizontal formats exploring immersion in nature.
The two canvases are very similar in composition—both feature a central cascade of reflected light descending through darker mirrored foliage, with lily pads clustered laterally, creating a sense of spatial breadth and no horizon line. Some sources describe them as identical in composition, likely variations on the same motif from Monet's serial approach.
Visual Style Notes
W1897 : Rich, bold brushwork; vibrant reflections; signed during Monet's lifetime
W1898 : More delicate, contemplative; diaphanous veils of color; possibly left unfinished
Similarities
- Composition and Motif — Nearly identical: Central vertical band of light/reflected sky amid horizontal darker foliage reflections, with floating lily pads. This creates an immersive, horizon-less view emphasizing water's surface and light play.
- Scale and Format — Monumental horizontal canvases (~100 × 200 cm), designed for enveloping the viewer (precursors to the Grandes Décorations murals in the Orangerie).
- Period and Technique — Late style: Thick, gestural brushstrokes; abstract tendencies; focus on color, light, and atmosphere over literal representation.
- Market Value — Both achieved ~$70–74 million, reflecting strong demand for prime late Water Lilies.
- Completion and Signature → W1897 is fully signed by Monet himself, indicating completion in his lifetime. W1898 bears estate stamps, suggesting it was unfinished at his death in 1926.
- Condition and Handling → W1897 has a more public history with exhibitions. W1898 was hidden in private hands for decades, adding to its "fresh-to-market" allure.
- Nuances in Execution → Descriptions suggest W1897 has richer, more vigorous color; W1898 is more ethereal and transparent in touch.
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1916 Suprematist Composition by Malevich
2018 SOLD for $ 86M by Christie's
Boccioni had wanted a global art with a figuration blurred within many facets. Kandinsky, Léger and a little later Mondrian were still exploring the boundaries between figurative and emotional. Malevich is unquestionably the first to purify art by freeing it from any interpretation of subject or object.
The second exhibition of his group, from mid-December 1915 to mid-January 1916, includes his Black Square on White Background, the first great shock from this new art. Malevich's aim is aesthetic. He finds for this new approach the designation of Suprematism.
The Black Square is his first flagship but it is not enough. The emotion must not be brought only by the freedom of the elements but also by the colors. Painted in 1915, the 18th Composition is a stack of almost rectangular non-transparent shapes in various colors. This artwork already invites to rotate the canvas for an observation in the four possible orientations. It was sold for £ 21.5M by Sotheby's on June 24, 2015.
After the closing of the exhibition 0.10 in January 1916, Malevich restarts his search for the ultimate expression of colors. Suprematist Composition, oil on canvas 89 x 71 cm painted in 1916, was sold for $ 60M by Sotheby's on November 3, 2008, lot 6 and for $ 86M by Christie's on May 15, 2018, lot 12 A. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The painting no longer produces an illusion : it is a composition based on about fifty colored beams spread over a white background. The size, the proportions and the colors are varied. The angular positions show an opposition between the big purple beam and most of the others.
Malevich has succeeded here in his approach to an art that completely escapes nature and feeling, to retain only the aesthetics of color and geometry. He wanted his art to be understandable in the same way in all countries.
Grok thought :
Quote
Javier Aznar @guardian_el_ May 21, 2018
En 86 millones de dólares han rematado este cuadro de Malevich ('Suprematist Composition', 1916) en Christie's Nueva York
The second exhibition of his group, from mid-December 1915 to mid-January 1916, includes his Black Square on White Background, the first great shock from this new art. Malevich's aim is aesthetic. He finds for this new approach the designation of Suprematism.
The Black Square is his first flagship but it is not enough. The emotion must not be brought only by the freedom of the elements but also by the colors. Painted in 1915, the 18th Composition is a stack of almost rectangular non-transparent shapes in various colors. This artwork already invites to rotate the canvas for an observation in the four possible orientations. It was sold for £ 21.5M by Sotheby's on June 24, 2015.
After the closing of the exhibition 0.10 in January 1916, Malevich restarts his search for the ultimate expression of colors. Suprematist Composition, oil on canvas 89 x 71 cm painted in 1916, was sold for $ 60M by Sotheby's on November 3, 2008, lot 6 and for $ 86M by Christie's on May 15, 2018, lot 12 A. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The painting no longer produces an illusion : it is a composition based on about fifty colored beams spread over a white background. The size, the proportions and the colors are varied. The angular positions show an opposition between the big purple beam and most of the others.
Malevich has succeeded here in his approach to an art that completely escapes nature and feeling, to retain only the aesthetics of color and geometry. He wanted his art to be understandable in the same way in all countries.
Grok thought :
Quote
Javier Aznar @guardian_el_ May 21, 2018
En 86 millones de dólares han rematado este cuadro de Malevich ('Suprematist Composition', 1916) en Christie's Nueva York
- The post announces the May 2018 Christie's auction sale of Kazimir Malevich's 1916 "Suprematist Composition" for $85.8 million, a record for the artist, featuring an image of the abstract geometric work with overlapping shapes in primary colors on white canvas.
- Malevich pioneered Suprematism in 1915, rejecting representational art for pure geometric forms to evoke spiritual sensations, marking a pivotal shift in 20th-century abstraction that influenced movements like De Stijl and Constructivism.
- The sale, up from $60 million in 2008, highlights surging demand for Russian avant-garde works amid global art market speculation, as echoed in replies critiquing the price as reflective of hype rather than intrinsic value.
