It was one of the most anticipated pieces of the auction and it did not disappoint. The sculpture, Petite danseuse de quatorze ans, by French impressionist Edgar Degas sold for $41.6 million on Thursday at a sale at Christie’s in New York, setting a record for any work by the artist to date.
The piece was part of the collection of philanthropist Anne H. Bass. The most valued of this personal collection, which began a great auction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, were the paintings Le Parlement, soleil couchant, by Claude Monet, which reached a price of 75.96 million; followed by Mark Rothko’s Untitled (Shades of Red) for $66.8 million.
Apart from the Degas sculpture, another work that Bass, who died in 2020, wore in his Fifth Avenue apartment also made history, Stue (Interior with an Oval Mirror), by the Danish Vilhelm Hammershøi’s, which with 6.3 million became also in the artist’s most expensive work.
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