Iconic Mondrian painting could fetch over $50m at Sotheby’s – 20 times more than last price

A painting by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian sold by a private seller is expected to fetch more than $50 million when auctioned at Sotheby’s in November as art prices skyrocket amid a post-pandemic industry boom.

Mondrian’s 1930 painting ‘Composition No. II’ would sell for more than twenty times the last time it was sold to a private Japanese collector in 1983 for $2.1 million, equating to about $6.4 million in 2022 dollars.

The sale comes as the art collecting industry is seeing a post-pandemic boom, with art sales rising 29% between 2020 and 2021, bringing in $65.1 billion, aided by the rise of online sales and traditional public auctions.

The Mondrian piece is one of his best works of his most famous era and features his penchant for abstract art combined with signature heavy black lines and primary colors.

Shot Sage Blue Marilyn by famed American artist Andy Warhol grossed $195 million when it sold this year at Christie’s in New York City

Pablo Picasso’s Femme assise pres d’une fenetre (Marie-Thérèse) is the most expensive painting sold to date in 2022, grossing $103 million

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s ‘In This Case’ sold for $93.1 million at Christie’s in 2021, the highest fee ever paid for a Basquiat work

Mondrian’s art has risen in value since he is more widely recognized as an artist “who fundamentally changed and forever expanded our perception of art,” according to Julian Dawes, Sotheby’s Head of Impressionist & Modern Art in New York.

The artwork has a shot at becoming the artist’s most expensive piece, as his current most expensive artwork, “Composition No III, with Red, Blue, Yellow and Black,” sold for $50.6 million in 2015.

Dawes says “Composition No. II” will be sold in a frenzied art market that hardly resembles the last where the piece was sold in 1983, which was “very different and much less global and competitive.”

Many investors see art as a safer investment vehicle than traditional stocks or real estate as those markets become increasingly uncertain, and DollarSprout reports that art investments have an average return of 7.6%.

The market is further encouraged by recent sales of works and collections for eye-watering sums, including real estate mogul Harry Macklowe and ex-wife Linda’s collection, which grossed a total of $922.2 million.

The couple’s collection, which included works by Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol and Gerhard Richter, was sold in two separate auctions at Sotheby’s in New York City. The previous record was held by banker David Rockefeller and his wife Peggy, who sold their $835 million collection in 2018.

That same month, Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn became the most expensive piece of art ever when it was auctioned off to an undisclosed buyer at Christie’s for over $195 million.

Rembrandt’s The Standard-Bearer was sold to the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands, as the government helped with about $140 million of the total cost of $170 million

Artists whose work is included in the collection of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen include Paul Cezanne, Jasper Johns, David Hockney and Edward Hopper

Jasper Johns’ 1959 collage work False Start is expected to fetch over $50 million at the November auction of Paul Allen’s collection

Among the artists whose work is included in Allen’s collection include Paul Cezanne, Jasper Johns, David Hockney, Edward Hopper, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Georgia O’Keefe, Paul Gauguin, Roy Lichtenstein, and Claude Monet

Harry and Linda Macklowe, now divorced, sold their art collection for a whopping $922.2 million

In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Salvador Mundi’ sold for a whopping $450 million after it was estimated to sell for $100 million, further encouraging dealers to buy in and reap the benefits.

Paul Allen, the late co-founder of Microsoft, also has one of the most valuable collections ever collected, including works by Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keefe, and Claude Monet.

Allen’s collection is expected to bring in more than $1 billion in sales and will be displayed at Christie’s in November in an auction called “Visionary: The Paul G. Allen Collection.”

In 2015 he told: Bloomberg: ‘It’s really great to live with these works of art. I think you have to share some works to give the public a chance to see them.’ Allen said in the same interview that his art collection was a “very, very good investment for me.”

After Allen’s death, it was revealed that he was the anonymous buyer of Monet’s haystack painting titled Meule in 2016. The painting sold for $81.4 million.

2022 also brought a wave of digital art sales as NFTs became hugely popular. Sotheby’s NFT sales raised $80 million, while Christie’s took $150 million from NFTs.

But external sales of NFTs eclipsed both auction houses, as NFT owners selling their works via blockchains brought in outrageous revenues of $11.1 billion, a huge increase from just $4.6 million in 2019.