A statue by Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti sold for £65 million (US$104.3 million) on Wednesday, a new world record for any work of art sold at auction, Sotheby’s said.
The life-size bronze L’homme qui marche I (Walking Man I) was the first time a Giacometti figure of a walking man on such a large scale had come to auction in more than 20 years.
The bronze was sold by German banking firm Commerzbank AG, which acquired it when it took over Dresdner Bank last year. Dresdner acquired the sculpture in 1980.
PHOTO: AFP
It had been expected to fetch between US$19 million and US$29 million at the evening sale of impressionist and modern art in London.
The hammer price, which includes buyer’s premium, just eclipsed Picasso’s Garcon a la Pipe, which fetched US$104 million in May 2004.
The new pinnacle was reached in eight minutes of “fast and furious” bidding, according to the auctioneer, with at least 10 potential purchasers battling it out for the rare work.
Sotheby’s did not identify the buyer, saying only that it was an anonymous telephone bidder.
In the same sale, a rare landscape by Gustav Klimt fetched £26.9 million, well above its pre-sale estimate of £12 million to £18 million.
It once belonged to the Austro-Hungarian iron magnate and collector Victor Zuckerkandl and his wife, Paula, but when the couple died childless in 1927 it was left to Viktor’s sister.
She died in the Holocaust and the painting went missing during the Nazi period, only to resurface at an exhibition decades later.
It was offered for sale following an agreement between the European private collector who owned it and Georges Jorisch, the 81-year-old great nephew of the original owner.
“Today’s sale closes a long-open chapter in my life in which I recover a part of my forbears’ legacy and pass it on to future generations, just as my parents would have wished,” Jorisch said in a statement.
Melanie Clore, co-chairman of impressionist and modern art at Sotheby’s said: “The competition which generated these exceptional results demonstrates the continued quest for quality that compels today’s collectors.”
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