Sotheby's London Evening Sale Kicks Off 2025 Auction Season with £62.7 Million

Sotheby's London opened the 2025 auction season on March 4 with its Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction, achieving £62.7 million against a pre-sale estimate of £50.6 million. The sale was part of the Marquee Week, which also includes Christie's (March 5) and Phillips (March 6), with aggregate minimum estimates of £198.1 million according to ArtTactic. Despite the withdrawal of a Gerhard Richter lot estimated at £5 million, the auction performed solidly. Top lot was Yoshitomo Nara's Cosmic Eyes (In The Milky Lake) (2005) at £9 million. A new auction record was set for South African painter Lisa Brice, whose After Embah sold for £5.4 million, nearly double her previous record of £3 million from 2021. Alberto Burri's Sacco e Nero 3 (1955) fetched over £4.9 million. Banksy's Crude Oil (Vettriano), from the collection of Blink-182 co-founder Mark Hoppus, sold for £4.3 million (estimate £3-5 million), inspired by The Singing Butler (1992) by the late Scottish artist. Two sculptures, Max Ernst's Moonmad and Auguste Rodin's Cariatide à la pierre, petit modèle, exceeded estimates, selling for £2.1 million and nearly £700,000 respectively. The Day Sales of modern and contemporary art added £8.6 million and £8.5 million. The comparable 2024 session had yielded £99.7 million but included nearly double the lots and The Now catalogue.