Top 10 Auction Results of 2017

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled, 1982. Sold for $110,487,500 in New York.

Basquiat’s Untitled is a singularly important work from a formative year of Basquiat’s meteoric career and indisputably the most significant work by the artist to ever appear at auction. After a dramatic competition between two determined bidders, the painting was sold to Tokyo-based collector and e-commerce entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa, who revealed himself as the happy buyer with an effusive Instagram post minutes later.

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CTF The Pink Star: One Of The World's Great Natural Treasures. Sold for HK$553,037,500 in Hong Kong.

On 4 April 2017 in Hong Kong, Sotheby’s set a new record for any diamond or jewel when the Pink Star, a 59.60-carat oval mixed-cut fancy vivid pink internally flawless diamond, sold for HK$553 million (US$71.2 million) to renowned jeweller Chow Tai Fook, who has renamed the stone ' CTF Pink Star .' Not only was the price more than double the previous record for a fancy vivid pink diamond, but it was also a new record for any work ever sold at auction in Asia.

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Gustav Klimt, Bauerngarten (Blumengarten), 1907. Sold for £47,971,250 in London.

Among the finest works by Gustav Klimt ever to come to auction, Bauerngarten was painted during the golden years of Klimt’s career and was a highlight of the critically acclaimed Painting the Modern Garden exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London last year.

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Superb and Extremely Rare Fancy Vivid Blue Diamond. Sold for CHF41,862,500 in Geneva.

The Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels sale in May 2017 was headlined by ‘The Apollo Blue' , which sold for CHF41,862,500. It was sold alongside 'The Artemis Pink' , which achieved the second highest price in the auction. The two diamonds, since renamed ‘The Memory of Autumn Leaves’ and ‘The Dream of Autumn Leaves’, sold for US$57,425,478 / CHF 57,118,750, becoming the most valuable pair of earrings ever sold at auction.

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Wassily Kandinsky, Bild mit weissen Linien (Painting with White Lines), 1913. Sold for £33,008,750 in London.

Produced in 1913, Bild mit weissen Linien represents an important period in Kandinsky's career during which he perfected his own lyrical form of abstraction. During this period, Kandinsky took his cue from the language of musical composition – and determined that every colour corresponded with a particular emotion or 'sound'.

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Francis Bacon, Three Studies Of George Dyer, 1966. Sold for $38,614,000 in New York.

Francis Bacon’s Three Studies of George Dyer is a rare triptych that shows the artist at the height of his power. George Dyer was a singular figure in Bacon’s work, appearing in more than 40 paintings, with as many created following his death as during his lifetime. However, triptychs of Dyer in this intimate scale are exceptionally rare. The present work was exhibited shortly after its execution and had not been seen publicly until its appearance at auction.

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A Highly Important and Extremely Rare Ru Guanyao Brush Washer. Northern Song Dynasty. Sold for HK$294,287,500 in Hong Kong.

A new world auction record for Chinese Ceramics was achieved in Hong Kong when an extraordinarily rare Ru guanyaobrush washer sold for HK$294.3 million ($37.7million) after 20 minutes of tense bidding. Regarded as the most celebrated of all wares in the history of Chinese ceramics, the brush washer broke the previous record of HK$281.24 Million (US$36.05 Million) set in 2014 by a Ming Dynasty Chicken Cup .

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Andy Warhol, Mao, 1972. Sold for $32,404,500 in New York.

Evincing the same commanding presence of the official state portrait that inspired it, Andy Warhol’s extraordinary Mao is among the most historically potent of the artist’s portraits. Fixing the viewer with a gaze both utterly penetrating and entirely opaque, Chairman Mao commands our full attention with a provocative bravura that characterises the artist’s most indelible Pop images.

It's no surpise that a Warhol Mao from 1973 was also among the top performing works for the year, earning HK$98.5 million (US$12.6 million) at Sotheby’s Hong Kong and setting an auction record for a work of Western contemporary art sold in Asia.

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Joan Miró, Femme et oiseaux, 1940. Sold for £24,571,250 in London.

Femme et oiseaux is the eighth composition in Miro's Constellations – a series comprising twenty-three paintings that he produced in under two years, from January 1940 to September 1941. The painting is a mesmerising example of the Miró's celebrated lyricism and freedom of expression: the ground has been brushed, scraped, polished, moistened and rubbed, creating the gradated pockets of light and dark that convey the celestial boundlessness in which the objects float.

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An Exceptionally Large, Fine and Important Blue and White Lobed ‘Fish Pond’ Bowl Mark and Period of Xuande. Sold for HK$229,037,500 in Hong Kong.

This outstanding Xuande lobed bowl , intricately painted in the most brilliant tones of underglaze blue with a design of fish swimming in a pond, and preserved in extraordinary condition, is arguably the greatest example of early Ming blue and white porcelain in private hands. The only comparable examples are two smaller bowls preserved in the National Palace Museum, Taipei. Revered and extensively published in Japan since its first public exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum in 1963, its appearance on the international art market now is a moment of celebration.

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