The Romanian modernist. The pre-fee hammer price was $93 million but it sold for a record price at the famous auction house in New York.
Brancusi’s bronze head, Danaïde (est.1913) inspired by the scultptor’s muse Mme Margot Pohany, has fetched $107.6 million, a 50 percent increase from the Romanian sculptor’s previous auction high and the second-highest ever prize for a sculpture.
A few minutes earlier, Pollock’s Number 7A (1948) went for $181.2 million, almost three times the previous record for the American Abstract Expressionist.
“Tonight’s Christie’s sale was a landmark moment for the market,” said art advisor Philip Hoffman, CEO of the Fine Art Group told .
Both pieces came from the collection of media magnate S.I. Newhouse, who died in 2017, aged 89.
Brancusi’s bronze was second-highest price ever paid for a sculpture at auction. (The record for a sculpture at auction is held by a 1947 Alberto Giacometti that sold for $141.3 million at Christie’s in 2015.)
Estimated at $100 million, Brancusi’s work drew just one bidder, the third-party guarantor, and it hammered at $93 million. (Final prices include fees while estimates don’t.)
Newhouse bought Danaïde, a bronze with a brown patina and gold leaf, for $18.2 million at Christie’s in 2002, at the time, a record for the sculptor—and for any sculpture at auction.
The work remained in his patrons, Eugene and Agnes the family’s collection until 2002, when it sold to Newhouse.
Celebrated as the patriarch of modern sculpture, Brancusi was who born in February 1876 is known reducing subjects to their pure, essential forms. Romania and global cultural institutions are hosting exhibitions and events this year to commemorate his 150-year legacy.
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