Not a single marquee lot has crossed the block yet, but New York’s November season already has a headline number. According to The Art Newspaper, Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Phillips and Bonhams expect to bring in at least $2.04 billion from their sales in the city this month, possibly more than $2.4 billion – slightly above last year’s estimates for the same period. The big evening auctions run from 16 to 18 November.
A private Musée d’Orsay from Argentina
The season’s centrepiece is the Blaquier-Arrieta collection at Sotheby’s: twelve Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Fauvist paintings assembled by the Argentine collectors Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier and Carlos Pedro Blaquier, many of them bought in the 1970s and hung for decades in the family’s homes outside Buenos Aires. Fully guaranteed and expected to fetch around $450 million, it is the most valuable single-owner group in town and goes under the hammer on 18 November.
Its headline lot is Vincent van Gogh’s Blossoming Chestnut Trees (1890), painted in Auvers-sur-Oise in the last months of the artist’s life. The estimate of around $180 million is far above the current Van Gogh auction record of $117 million, set by Orchard with Cypresses at the Paul Allen sale in 2022 – and because the work is guaranteed, a new record is all but certain. Next to it hangs Paul Cézanne’s Arlequin (1888–90), described by Sotheby’s as the only painting from the harlequin series still in private hands, estimated at around $120 million against a Cézanne record of $137.79 million. Renoir, Pissarro, Degas, Monet and Gauguin round out the group.
Overall, Sotheby’s projects more than $1.1 billion for the season, which would be a house record for a marquee series. Its week opens on 16 November with the Baum collection, estimated above $100 million and led by a red-and-orange Mark Rothko from 1967.
Kandinsky, Koons rumours and Gund’s legacy
At Christie’s, the top lot is Wassily Kandinsky’s Betonte Ecken (1922–23) from his Bauhaus years, once in the Guggenheim collection and estimated at $60–80 million for the 20th Century Evening Sale on 17 November. According to market reports, a guarantor has committed to a bid above the artist’s record. The house expects between $823 million and $1.1 billion across its New York sales. A group called “Heroes & Lovers”, which press reports link to Jeff Koons as consignor – unconfirmed by the artist – is led by Picasso’s Le Baiser (1969) at around $40 million. Further works from the late MoMA patron Agnes Gund will again benefit her foundation, among them Vija Celmins’s Untitled (Ocean) at $6–8 million.
Phillips puts its hopes on a limestone Tête by Modigliani, estimated at $28–35 million on 17 November.
What the numbers really say
Guarantees and estimates are promises, not results. Still, the mood after Paris in October, where a Monet Iris set a French auction record, has been confident. Next week will show whether collectors want to pay record prices for masterpieces with impeccable provenance – or whether the guarantees are doing most of the work.