Paul Allen’s art collection fetches record $1.5B at auction
New York, The Gulf Observer: Five dozen works from Paul Cezanne, Vincent van Gogh and other revered artists has brought in $1.5 billion at an auction of part of the vast collection of paintings and sculpture amassed by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
The total represented the highest amount ever collected at a single art auction, according to the auction house, Christie’s in New York, on Wednesday. Proceeds will be donated to philanthropic causes in accordance with the wishes of Allen, who died in 2018.
Several of the winning bids smashed previous records for individual artists and many exceeded the expected sales prices estimated by Christie’s.
Among the priciest works sold was Pointillist pioneer Georges Seurat’s Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version), an 1888 oil on canvas depicting three nude women. It fetched $149.2 million including fees, a record for a Seurat piece.
