Leonora Carrington's Les Distractions de Dagobert sells for record $28.5 million at Sotheby's New York

Leonora Carrington's 1945 surrealist painting Les Distractions de Dagobert sold for $28.5 million at Sotheby's New York on May 15, 2024, setting a new auction record for the artist. The work, estimated at $12-18 million and backed by an irrevocable bid, was contested for over ten minutes among three bidders—one in the room and two on the phone. The winning bidder was Argentine entrepreneur Eduardo F. Costantini, founder of the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires, who had been the underbidder when the same painting sold for $475,500 in the mid-1990s. The sale was part of Sotheby's Modern Art Evening Auction, which generated $235 million total, down 22.5% from the comparable 2023 sale. Other highlights included Claude Monet's Meules à Giverny at $34.8 million, Alexander Calder's Blue Moon at $14.4 million (above its $10 million high estimate), and Édouard Manet's Vase de fleurs, roses et lilas at over $10 million. A Vincent van Gogh painting, Head of a Peasant (1885), sold for $787,400—half its low estimate—to art dealer and collector Hong Gyu Shin, who noted it was his first van Gogh. Two of the 50 lots went unsold, including Pablo Picasso's Femme au chapeau (1939) estimated at $6-8 million. Sotheby's strategy included conservative estimates and third-party guarantees to attract buyers amid a contracting market.