Cezanne, it once was said, never sells well at auction. I’m not sure if that’s still true, but he sure sells well privately. Yesterday came the news that The Card Players, one of five he painted, sold for more than $250 million to the royal family of Qatar.
The Card Players
As my friend Alexandra Peers reports for Vanity Fair: “The deal, in a single stroke, sets the sets the highest price ever paid for a work of art and upends the modern art market… it more than doubles the current auction record for a work of art. And this is no epic van Gogh landscape or Vermeer portrait, but an angular, moody representation of two Aix-en-Provence peasants in a card game. But, for its $250 million, Qatar gets more than a post-Impressionist masterpiece; it wins entry into an exclusive club…”
The picture came from the collection of the late Greek shipping magnate George Embiricos, and as Alexandra reports, “was listed by ARTnews magazine as one of the world’s top artworks still in private hands” about five years ago.
For perspective:
The most paid for a painting at auction is the $106 million, paid last year at Christie’s for a lush portrait of Picasso’s curvy mistress Marie-Thérèse. Privately, works by Picasso, Pollock, Klimt, and de Kooning have changed hands in the $125 million-to-$150 million range, traded to and from by Ronald Lauder, Wynn, David Geffen, and the like. But no price has come close to this one.
There’s more intrique and detail in the article, which I recommend, involving Bill Acquavella and Larry Gagosian, who wanted to buy it, Pissarro’s grandson, and speculation about what happens next from Qatar. Here’s the link.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Vanity Fair
But art always follows the money. In 1912 Louisine Havemeyer set a record for the highest price ever paid for a living artist’s work when she purchased a Degas at auction, “Dancers Practicing at the Bar.” The price caused a sensation at the time. The picture is now on view at the Met, part of the great Havemeyer bequest. Museums usually lend their works out to other museums and so many people around the globe benefit from public ownership. No doubt the Cezanne in Qatar will eventually be shared as well. (By the way, in the today’s NY Times there’s a an article about recent Old Master auctions in which great, but lesser-known names, did not sell.. For those with money, there’s still great art to buy.)