A few days ago we previewed Christie’s first fine-art auction in Abu Dhabi. Now the results are in, and the sale did better than a cautious market might have expected. “MAWASIM: 20 Years of Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art”, held on the evening of 1 November 2026 at The Abu Dhabi EDITION, realised US$8,940,800.
Best evening in more than a decade
According to Christie’s, it was the highest total for one of its Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art evening sales in more than ten years. The auction brought together 70 lots by 58 artists from 13 countries and marked twenty years since the house’s first UAE sale in Dubai in 2006. Works came from, among others, the Dalloul Collection in Beirut and the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah.
Seven minutes for a hexagon
The top lot was Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s mirror work Variations on the Hexagon (2006). After almost seven minutes of bidding it sold for $844,800, more than three times its high estimate of $150,000–250,000. Turkish painter Fahrelnissa Zeid’s Composition (1948–1949) followed at $524,800, while Iraqi artist Faisel Laibi Sahi’s Baghdad Café (The Coffee Shop) (2016) and Iranian artist Ali Banisadr’s Homo Deus (2018) each reached $512,000.
Three works shared the $486,400 mark: Paul Guiragossian’s Noces (Wedding) (1958–1959), Mahmoud Saïd’s Portrait of Princess Fadia (1952) and Zeid’s Endless Thoughts from the 1970s. Samia Halaby’s Yesterday (1978) fetched $358,400.
Nine records and four debuts
Christie’s counted nine auction records, including those for Jellal Ben Abdallah, Paul Guiragossian, Faisel Laibi Sahi, Juliana Seraphim, Nabil Kanso, Samia Halaby, Rami Farook, Fatma Lootah and Afra Al Dhaheri. For Guiragossian and Halaby these were records for the medium. Emirati artists Rami Farook, Fatma Lootah and Afra Al Dhaheri, along with Lebanese painter Nabil Kanso, made their auction debuts.
A younger crowd
Perhaps the most interesting figure is not a price. More than 30 per cent of registrants were Millennials or Gen Z, and 37 per cent were new to Christie’s. Anthea Peers, Christie’s president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said the house was “absolutely thrilled” to see bidding from across its global client base.
For the Gulf art scene, the result is a signal: Abu Dhabi, already home to the Louvre Abu Dhabi, can now also host a serious evening sale. Whether this becomes an annual fixture will be one of the questions to watch in 2027.