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John Thain’s Picasso Sells for $29.6 Million as Auctions Start

A visitor stands next to the artworks 'Sleeping Woman with Venetian Blinds' (C, 1936) and 'Straw Hat with Blue Leaves' (R, 1936) by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, displayed in the exhibition 'The Holidays of Mr. Pablo. Picasso in Antibes Juan-les-Pins 1920-1946' at the Pablo Picasso Museum in Antibes, southern France, 26 October 2018. This exhibition runs from 29 September 2018 to 13 January 2019. EPA-EFE/SEBASTIEN NOGIER

Christie’s kicked off a week of auctions in New York with an evening sale of Impressionist and modern art on Sunday.

It’s part of the semiannual auctions that bring the art world to Manhattan. There’s more than $1.8 billion worth of art on offer. Here are the latest developments, updated throughout the evening:

Sale Totals $279.2 Million, Below Low Estimate (9:07 p.m.)

The auction at Christie’s Rockefeller Center salesroom is over. The total was $279.2 million, below the low estimate of $305 million.

Monet’s Snowy Giverny Scene Beats High Estimate (8:35 p.m.)

A Claude Monet water lily painting sold for $31.8 million, against an estimate of $30 million to $50 million while the artist’s wintery snow scene at Giverny found a buyer at almost $15.5 million. Its estimate was $5 million to $8 million.

Artist Auction Records Set for Arp, Lempicka (8:13 p.m.)

A curvy white sculpture by Hans Arp sold for $5.8 million, setting an auction record for the artist. A painting by Tamara de Lempicka, “La Musicienne,” sold for $9.1 million, also an auction record for the artist.

A Van Gogh painting of a garden, estimated at $40 million, went unsold.

Thain’s Picasso Sells for $29.6 Million (7:42 p.m.)

Pablo Picasso’s “La Lampe,” a 1931 painting depicting the artist’s young lover, Marie-Therese Walter, fetched $29.6 million. It was estimated at $25 million to $35 million. The anonymous seller of the work was Wall Street veteran John Thain, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. He’d owned it since 2008.

A smaller Picasso portrait of Marie-Therese Walter in an orange beret, estimated at $15 million to $20 million, went unsold, as did Monet’s L’Escalier à Vétheuil, with a high estimate of $18 million.

Picasso accounted for about a quarter of the lots in the tonight’s sale. The Spanish artist’s grandson, Olivier Widmaier Picasso, 55, was among the throng of dealers and collectors attending the sale. DM

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