On the evening of 24 June 2026, Masterpieces from The Lewis Collection, together with Sotheby’s annual June evening sale of Modern & Contemporary art, realised a combined £393.4m / $520.7m in London (est. £267.6m to 383.3m), the highest auction total ever achieved in a single night in Europe. Ten works sold for over £10m across the two sales.
The Lewis Collection alone brought £296.3m / $392.6m (est. £190.2m to 273.6m), a record for any single-owner sale ever staged in London. Bidding from around the world drove many prices well beyond expectations, with as many as eleven bidders pursuing certain lots and over 70 percent of works selling above their high estimates. Asian collectors acquired lots accounting for more than a third of the sale’s value, more than £120m.
The collection was led by Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu assis au collier, which sold for £48.2m / $63.9m (est. in excess of £45m), the highest price achieved for the artist at auction in Europe. A further Modigliani, Homme à la pipe (Le Notaire de Nice), sold for £23.3m / $30.9m (est. £12m to 18m). Lucian Freud’s Sleeping by the Lion Carpet, the fourth and final iteration of his monumental portraits of ‘benefits supervisor’ Sue Tilley, sold for £29.3m / $38.8m (est. £25m to 35m).
Gustav Klimt’s full-length society portrait Bildnis Gertrud Loew (Gertha Felsőványi) was pursued by seven bidders before selling for £36.2m / $47.9m to an Asian private collector (est. £20m to 30m). Gustave Caillebotte’s Portrait de Paul Hugot, appearing at auction for the first time in more than 30 years, sold for £10.3m / $13.6m, more than double the high estimate (est. £3.5m to 4.5m). Edgar Degas’ Petite Danseuse de quatorze ans reached £25.1m / $33.3m (est. £18m to 25m), the second highest price ever achieved at auction for the artist’s iconic bronze.
Five works by Pablo Picasso were led by Buste de femme, which made its auction debut at £23.9m / $31.6m (est. £12m to 18m). Egon Schiele’s Danaë sold for £17.9m / $23.8m (est. £12m to 18m). René Magritte’s gouache La Belle promenade sold for £16m / $21.3m, an auction record for a work on paper by the artist (est. £3m to 4m). Kazimir Malevich’s Head of a Peasant sold for £3m / $4m, more than 14 times the price it achieved when last sold at Sotheby’s in London in 1993 (est. £1.5m to 2m).
The Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction realised £97.1m / $128.1m (est. £77.4m to 109.7m), a 55 percent increase on the equivalent sale last June. Claude Monet’s Nymphéas, shown in the legendary 1909 exhibition of the artist’s waterlilies at Galerie Durand-Ruel, saw competition between five bidders before achieving £40.8m / $54m (est. £30m to 40m), the most valuable Impressionist work sold at auction in Europe in over a decade.
An Untitled work on paper by Mark Rothko, making its auction debut, sold for £9m / $12m after a ten-minute bidding battle (est. £4m to 6m). Banksy’s Love Is In The Air (life size) sold for £6.4m / $8.5m (est. £3.5m to 5.5m). A new auction record for the British artist Marlow Moss was set by White, Yellow and Black at £1.1m / $1.6m (est. £450,000 to 650,000). The London sales continued on 25 June with the Contemporary and Modern Day Auctions.
(Press Release)
