Sotheby’s launched its high-profile Magnum Opus collection sales in New York with a white-glove evening auction that brought in $63 million, achieving a 100 percent sell-through rate across all 64 lots offered. Staged on Oct. 21, the event unfolded during a busy period for the international art market when significant attention was directed toward London and Paris, a timing factor that perhaps allowed the blockbuster sale to slip somewhat below broader public awareness despite its exceptional financial totals.
The evening performance easily surpassed expectations, outstripping its high presale estimate of $47.6 million and single-handedly exceeding the $60 million initially projected for the entire initial series of New York auctions. According to Sotheby’s chairman George Wachter, the assemblage represented an extraordinary breadth of human creativity stretching from antiquity to the modern era.
“In more than 50 years in this field, I have encountered very few collections that achieve what this one does—a true coherence of vision across such extraordinary breadth,” Wachter said in a statement released when the sale was announced. He noted that across its 25 distinct categories, every object reflected a discerning intellectual framework exploring connections among fine artistic expressions across centuries.
Driving the evening’s historic results was a monumental Roman Imperial marble torso, which dominated the auction floor by fetching $34.3 million following a competitive 14-minute bidding battle among five separate collectors. Supported by a financial guarantee and an irrevocable bid, the artifact obliterated its initial $8 million to $12 million estimate. Dating to the first half of the first century A.D., the remarkably well-preserved sculpture likely depicts one of the Julio-Claudian emperors. Its closest stylistic parallels reside in prominent institutions such as the Vatican Museums and the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb. Carved in two sections, the figure retains detailed elements including a tunic, a leather corselet with fringed lappets, a bronze cuirass, and a paludamentum draped from the left shoulder.
The sculptural torso, believed to have originated from Salona in Dalmatia, was documented in the mid-19th century as the property of Aloys Maximilian Neumann after he acquired it in Split. It remained with his descendants until a 2010 Sotheby’s sale where an Austrian buyer purchased it for $7.36 million, meaning its value has more than quadrupled over the past decade and a half. The transaction sets a new world auction record for any Roman antiquity. Its extensive exhibition history includes long-term loans to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Yale University Art Gallery, as well as a recent public showing at the J. Paul Getty Museum from 2021 to 2024.
Another major highlight of the evening was Canaletto’s 18th-century canvas Venice, View of the Grand Canal Looking East with Santa Maria della Salute, which realized $6.2 million, landing comfortably inside its $6 million to $8 million estimate. Dating from circa 1740, the painting spent over six decades within the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has toured international cultural venues including the National Gallery in Athens, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, and Beijing’s National Museum of China. It previously sold at Sotheby’s in 2020 for just under $5.3 million.
Still Life with Oranges, Nuts and Spices, Boxes of Sweetmeats, a Jug, and a Cask by the Spanish still-life painter Luis Meléndez brought in $5 million, hitting the midpoint of its $4 million to $6 million estimate. Meanwhile, a 17th-century Dutch landscape by Jacob van Ruisdael, View of Haarlem from the Northwest, sold at its $2.5 million low estimate backed by a guarantee. A Roman Imperial marble portrait head of a girl from the Augustan period also achieved $2.5 million, setting a new category record by surpassing the $2,225,000 mark it set when Sotheby’s last sold it in 2014.
Among modern works, a rare preparatory study by Gustav Klimt titled Liegender Halbakt nach rechts generated animated competition. Bidders on the phone and in the room pursued the study for several minutes before an online buyer secured it for $281,600, well above its $120,000 to $180,000 estimate. The drawing offers a glimpse into the artist’s lost masterpiece Leda, which was destroyed at Immendorf Castle in 1945. Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s Head of an Old Man drew four bidders and achieved $1.5 million with fees.
Textiles and decorative arts also commanded intense attention. A rare Royal Louis XIV Savonnerie carpet fragment dating to 1664-66 sparked a four-way contest that pushed its final price to $217,600 against an estimate of $50,000 to $70,000. Woven by the Lourdet family workshop for the Galerie d’Apollon at the Palais du Louvre, the fragment features a radiating sun motif tied to the decorative program of the Sun King. A Safavid carpet fragment made in Persia around 1600 performed strongly at $448,000, aligning with expectations.
Several Iznik ceramic works exceeded projections. An Iznik pottery border tile from Turkey dated circa 1570 drew five bidders and sold for $61,440 over its high estimate, driven by its notable çintamani motif and historical association with carpet dealer Heinrich Jacoby. Additional Iznik tiles surpassed estimates later in the program, bringing in $53,760, $61,445, and $76,500.
Antiquities continued to excel as a Greek bronze anatomical cuirass more than doubled its low estimate to reach $704,000 amid competition from four participants. On the modern sculpture front, Auguste Rodin’s bronze Torse d’Adèle achieved $332,800, more than double its high estimate of $150,000 and marking an 89 percent nominal increase in dollar value over its 2022 auction price.
The broader Magnum Opus series proceeded on Oct. 22 and 23 with three day sales titled Figure & Form, Darkness & Light, and Ornament & Texture, which added a combined $7.29 million. across all four sessions, the total collection earnings exceeded $70 million against initial expectations of $38 million to $56 million, maintaining a sell-through rate above 98 percent. Additional items from the extensive collecting journey are scheduled to appear in subsequent sales in New York and Paris in 2027, ultimately encompassing more than 900 works spread across 26 auctions.
