JULA

The inclusion of Salvator Mundi  in the National Gallery’s landmark 2011-12 exhibition of Leonardo’s surviving paintings — the most complete display of such works ever held — sealed its acceptance as a fully autograph work by Leonardo da Vinci. This came after more than six years of painstaking research and inquiry to document the painting’s authenticity. It was process that began shortly after the work was discovered — heavily veiled with overpaints, long mistaken for a copy — in a small, regional auction in the United States in 2005. Prior to that, it was consigned to a 1958 sale at Sotheby’s where it sold for £45.

The previous holder of the record price for an Old Master painting was Massacre of the Innocents  by Peter Paul Rubens, which sold for $76.7 million (£49.5 million) in 2002. The previous auction record for Leonardo da Vinci was set at Christie’s in 2001 when Horse and Rider, a work on paper, sold for $11,481,865. The previous record for the most expensive work of art at auction was set in the same Christie’s saleroom, when Picasso’s Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’) achieved $179,364,992.

These records were obliterated when Jussi Pylkkänen, Christie’s Global President, brought the hammer down on Lot 9 after an extraordinary bidding battle that lasted just short of 20 minutes. The contest boiled down to two bidders, with the increments jumping at one point from $332 million to $350 million in one bid, and then, at just short of 18 minutes, from $370 million to $400 million. Gasps were heard in the saleroom, which gave way to applause when Christie’s co-chairman Alex Rotter made the winning bid for a client on the phone.

‘It is every auctioneer’s ambition to sell a Leonardo and likely the only chance I will ever have,’ said Pylkkänen. ‘It’s the pinnacle of my career so far. It is also wonderful for an Old Master to be at the centre of such attention. The excitement from the public for this work of art has been overwhelming and hugely heartening.’

The Leonardo, which was offered in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale  as a testament to the picture’s enduring relevance, was one of many highlights in a highly successful auction that realised a total of $785,942,250 / £597,220,555 — 84 per cent sold by lot, and 94 per cent by value.

Andy Warhol’s Sixty Last Suppers  from 1986 — an outstanding example from the artist’s great final painting series, and the largest painting by the American Pop artist ever to come to auction — sold for $60,875,000. Based on Leonardo’s Renaissance masterpiece, the monumental piece is from a group of works created by Warhol on the suggestion of Milan-based gallerist Alexander Iolas in 1984.

Cy Twombly’s Untitled  from 2005, the largest work from the acclaimed Bacchus  series, which marked the culmination of the artist’s 50-year painterly practice, sold for $46,437,500 before two lots later, Sunset  (1957) by the same artist achieved $24,000,000.

Mark Rothko’s Saffron  (1957), a work that belongs to a select group of brightly coloured canvases Rothko produced in the mid-1950s, just a few months before his oeuvre shifted to a more sombre palette, was the subject of another bidding battle before selling for $32,375,000.

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The sale also saw strong demand for works from exceptional collections. The superb American Abstract Expressionist works acquired by Heinz and Ruthe Eppler — the first comprehensive survey to be offered at auction since 2012 — were among the evening’s highlights, with Franz Kline’s Light Mechanic  producing the highest price when it was acquired for $20,000,000. The running total for The Eppler Collection stands at $71,943,500, with more works to be offered on Thursday.

The sale’s three works from the Collection of Nancy Lee and Percy R. Bass, which produced outstanding results in Monday’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale, were also highly sought after, with top honours going to Mark Rothko’s Untitled  (1969), which sold for $11,000,000. The collection’s total moved to $161,149,750 with more works to come in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale.

New world auction records for the artists were set with the first three works offered in the sale: Adam Pendleton’s Black Dada (K), Philippe Parreno’s My Room is Another Fish Bowl, and Kerry James Marshall’s Still Life with Wedding Portrait. It set the tone as further auction highs were established for Vija Celmins, William Baziotes, Lee Krasner, Hans Hofman, Julian Schnabel and, in the very last lot of the night, Isamu Noguchi. Further records by medium were set for works by Alexander Calder, Mark Rothko, Jean Dubuffet and Richard Serra.