New York's November Auctions: A $180m Van Gogh and a Hidden Basquiat

New York's November auctions arrive with records in their sights. On 22 October in Paris, Monet's Iris sold for €50 million (US$56 million) with fees at Sotheby's, the most expensive artwork ever auctioned in France, according to AFP. Now Sotheby's and Christie's are betting that the appetite for trophy paintings travels across the Atlantic.

The dates and the headline lots

• 16 November, Sotheby's: The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction, led by Roy Lichtenstein's Reflections on "Painter and Model" (estimate US$20–30 million), with a Yayoi Kusama and a Francis Bacon self-portrait at US$10–15 million each, according to Sotheby's sale page.
• 18 November, Sotheby's: Legendary: The Blaquier-Arrieta Collection, twelve paintings expected to total about US$450 million.
• 19 November, Christie's: Basquiat's Untitled (Leonardo and His Five Grotesque Heads) leads the 21st Century Evening Sale at about US$30 million, Galerie magazine reports.
• Across its November sales, Christie's is also offering works from collector Bill Koch, expected to bring more than US$40 million, led by Monet's Champ d'avoine et coquelicots (1890), according to ARTnews.

The Argentine time capsule

The Blaquier-Arrieta collection was assembled by the late Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier and her husband, sugar magnate Carlos Pedro Blaquier, and is being sold by their children, the Associated Press reported. Its star is Van Gogh's Châtaigniers en fleurs (Chestnut Trees in Flower), painted in May 1890 and estimated at US$180 million, well above the artist's auction record of US$117 million set in 2022.

Cézanne's Arlequin is one of four paintings of the artist's son dressed as Harlequin; the other three are in major museums. Estimated at around US$120 million, it would also be a record for Cézanne at auction, The Art Newspaper notes. Neither painting has been seen in public for half a century. "It's a market-defining moment to have an 1890 Van Gogh come through," Helena Newman, Sotheby's chairman of Impressionist and Modern art, told the paper. Sotheby's has guaranteed the collection.

Basquiat answers Leonardo

Christie's counterpunch is a seven-by-seven-foot canvas in acrylic and oil stick: Basquiat's response to Leonardo da Vinci's 1493 study once known as Five Grotesque Heads. Galerie says it has been out of sight for about 20 years. The artist's auction record remains US$110.5 million, set in 2017.

Two estimates, two records at stake: November in New York is a referendum on the very top of the market.

How to follow it: the evening sales are usually streamed live on the auction houses' websites, with prices updated lot by lot. We will report the results, and what they say about the market, as soon as the hammers fall.