 sold for $149.2 million and Gustav Klimt's Birch Forest went for $104.5 million.Paul Allen's collection included more than 150 masterpieces, including The Conversation by David HockneyFREDERIC J BROWN/GETTY IMAGESLucian Freud's Large Interior,){kind=link}
The sale was billed as “the largest and most exceptional art auction in history”, which experts agreed was not an exaggeration.
It did not take long for such a bold prediction to be fulfilled, as the Christie’s auction of a staggering collection belonging to Paul Allen, the late Microsoft co-founder, broke records in New York, fetching $1.5 billion and becoming the biggest art auction ever held.
On the first of two nights Paul Cezanne’s La Montaigne Sainte-Victoire sold for $137.8 million, more than double the previous record for a piece by the French post-impressionist. Paul Gauguin’s Maternite II fetched $105.7 million, Georges Seurat’s Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version) sold for $149.2 million and Gustav Klimt’s Birch Forest went for $104.5 million.
Lucian Freud’s Large Interior,
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