A painting by Rene Magritte shattered an auction record for the surrealist artist on Tuesday, selling for more than $121 million at Christie's in New York. The seminal 1954 painting had been valued at $95 million, and the previous record for a work by Magritte (1898-1967) was $79 million, set in 2022. After a nearly 10-minute bidding war on Tuesday, "Empire of Light" ("L'Empire des lumieres") was sold for $121,160,000, "achieving a world-record price for the artist and for a surrealist work of art at auction", according to auction house Christie's.
The painting -- depicting a house at night, illuminated by a lamp post, while under a bright, blue sky -- is one of a series by the Belgian artist showing the interplay of shadow and light. "Empire of Light" was part of the private collection of Mica Ertegun, an interior designer who fled communist Romania to settle in the United States where she became an influential figure in the arts world. She died in late 2023 and was married to the late Ahmet Ertegun, the music magnate who founded the Atlantic Records label.
Sign up to get our free daily email of the biggest stories! The sale of the Magritte painting was an expected highlight of this week's autumn sales season in New York, at a time when the art market has seen a slowdown since last year. Christie's -- which is controlled by Artemis, the investment holding company owned by the Pinault family -- said sales totaled $2.1 billion in the first half of this year.
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