A Sotheby\u2019s auction that began with 25 works from the collection of the billionaire Joe Lewis in London on Wednesday night raised \u00a3393.4 million with fees, about $520.7 million, breaking the auction house\u2019s record for an evening of modern and contemporary sales in the British capital.<\/p>\n
Sotheby\u2019s said the amount raised by the Lewis lots alone \u2014 \u00a3296.3 million \u2014 was also the highest total ever achieved for a London sale of artworks from a single owner. It had been estimated to sell for \u00a3190 million.<\/p>\n
In a packed room, most of the lots sold for far above their pre-auction valuations; only one lot failed to sell. Early in the sale, bidders gasped when a Ren\u00e9 Magritte gouache work on paper sold for \u00a316 million, four times the upper estimate, which was the price of an oil painting by the artist.<\/p>\n
Experts said the success of the double-header evening auction event could help restore the city\u2019s Brexit-battered reputation as a global hub for selling the world\u2019s most expensive art.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a perfect example of what London can do,\u201d said the international dealer Thaddaeus Ropac. \u201cThis was the best sale we\u2019ve had here in years. It showed that if you offer great quality material people will go the extra mile.\u201d<\/p>\n
The top price at the sale, \u201cMasterpieces From the Lewis Collection,\u201d<\/a> went to Amedeo Modigliani\u2019s 1917 \u201cSeated Nude With Necklace<\/a>,\u201d which sold for \u00a348.2 million. It was one of 25 masterworks by famed modern and contemporary artists offered for sale by Lewis, the Bahamas-based currency trader whose family owns Tottenham Hotspur, one of England\u2019s most valuable soccer franchises. (Lewis also made headlines in 2024 when a New York judge fined him $5 million for insider trading, although President Trump pardoned him<\/a> last year.)<\/p>\n \u201cA lot was down to Joe Lewis,\u201d Ropac said. \u201cHe\u2019s a Londoner and he wanted his works to be sold in London.\u201d<\/p>\n The Lewis lots were followed by an auction of 40 modern and contemporary pieces from other owners, including an ethereal 1907 Claude Monet painting<\/a> of the surface of his lily-pond in Giverny, France. It sold for \u00a340.8 million, leading a session that raised \u00a397.1 million.<\/p>\n Britain\u2019s 2016 vote to leave the European Union<\/a> has hurt the country\u2019s trade and investment<\/a> in recent years, including its art market. Before Brexit, Sotheby\u2019s and Christie\u2019s would each host three weeks of modern and contemporary art sales in London every year. Now, Christie\u2019s has opted out of the summer slot.<\/p>\n Christine Bourron, the chief executive of the art market analytics firm Pi-eX, said its data showed that British auction sales had declined to $1.6 billion last year from $3.4 billion in 2015, a drop of 47 percent. (Equivalent sales in the United States declined 25 percent, to $5.1 billion in 2025 from $6.5 billion in 2015.)<\/p>\n \u201cThe Brexit referendum marked the beginning of a sustained decline in the U.K.\u2019s share of the global public auction market,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n But Wednesday\u2019s \u00a3393.4 million total from a single night of sales far exceeded Sotheby\u2019s record for its evening modern and contemporary sales in London, a combined \u00a3310 million in February 2015 \u2014 the height of the pre-Brexit art market. That suggests a return to form for London as an international auction center, albeit at only one of the two main auction houses.<\/p>\n Lewis had bought \u201cSeated Nude With Necklace\u201d \u2014 one of Modigliani\u2019s rare and coveted paintings of a naked subject \u2014 in 1995 for $12.4 million. (In 2015, the artist\u2019s \u201cNu Couch\u00e9\u201d sold at Christie\u2019s for $170.5 million<\/a> to the Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian.) It was one of the few Lewis works that attracted subdued competition on Wednesday, selling to a single telephone bid. \u201cIt was a bit boring,\u201d said the collector Alex Lachmann, alluding to how Modigliani\u2019s most expensive nudes have tended to be more overtly voluptuous.<\/p>\n The Lewis entries also included another very different seated female nude: Lucian Freud\u2019s \u201cSleeping by the Lion Carpet,\u201d<\/a> a monumental portrait of a social services supervisor, which sold for \u00a329.3 million. It depicts the same model as Freud\u2019s \u201cBenefits Supervisor Sleeping,\u201d which sold at auction in 2008 for $33.6 million<\/a>. That buyer was later revealed to be the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich<\/a>.<\/p>\n Other Lewis highlights included Gustav Klimt\u2019s 1902 full-length \u201cPortrait of Gertrud Loew (Gertha Felsovanyi)<\/a>\u201d that the collector bought in 2015 for \u00a324.8 million, also at Sotheby\u2019s in London. Eleven years later, this tender portrayal of the young wife of a Hungarian industrialist sold for \u00a336.2 million.<\/p>\n A 1922 bronze cast of Edgar Degas\u2019s famous wax sculpture \u201cLittle Dancer of Fourteen Years,\u201d first exhibited at the sixth Impressionist Exhibition in 1881, had similarly broad appeal. One of 29 casts of the sculpture, it sold for \u00a325.1 million.<\/p>\n