Christie’s Paris Auctions, Spring 22

Christie’s held two photography auctions this month; Photographies and Fashion photographs from the Susanne von Meiss collection, both held in Paris with sales completing on 24th May. 

The fashion photography auction brought together famous works from long-favoured masters of the craft including Horst P. Horst, Garry Winogrand, Brassai and Ellen von Unwerth. The small auction raised a sales total of €113,400 ($121,712), with the highest priced lot a 1937 portrait of Coco Chanel by Horst P. Horst, which was expected to fetch €5,000-€7,000 but gained a hammer price of €12,600. Outperforming estimates was the story of the day for the remaining two top spots. Lillian Bassmann’s Black – With one white glove, Barbara Mulle, Christian Dior selling fro €11,970 after an original estimate of €5,000-€7,000, followed by Melvin Sokolsky’s Fly stairs, Paris, 1965, which more than doubled it’s top estimate of €4,000 by raising €9,450.

Photographies was a much grander affair, as Christie’s Paris’ annual marquee photography auction. The sale brought together 123 20th and 21st century works from ‘leading practitioners of the medium; Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, Robert Mapplethorpe, Hiro, Nan Goldin, Candida Hofer, Hiroshi Sugimoto & Marina Abramovic’. Hammer prices ranged from €756 to €378,000, which was earned by Helmut Newton’s Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1974 (NSFW), which had an initial estimate of €300,000-€500,000. In second place was Irving Penn’s Station Sweeper, New York, 1951, which outperformed its estimate of €70,000-€90,000 by achieving a hammer price of €107,100. Finally, in third was another Helmut Newton print, this time Yves Saint Laurent, “Rue Aubriot”, Vogue, Paris, 1975, which outperformed its €30,000-€40,000 estimate, with a sales price of €60,480. The auction brought in a sales total of €1,318,968 ($1,415,648).

Read more about other photography auctions this month in tomorrow’s post, as well as upcoming posts reviewing upcoming auctions.

image by nil castellvi