The collection up for auction, put together by the oil dynasty scion, features art from Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and Georgia O’Keeffe

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A record-breaking first evening of a three-day auction of David Rockefeller’s world-class private art collection raised over $646m in New York on Tuesday – an amount that already exceeds the valuation of the entire 1,600-item sale list that, all told, is predicted to break the $1bn mark.

Among the works of art for sale at Christie’s in Manhattan on Tuesday evening were a rose period portrait by Pablo Picasso that sold for $115m (including fees) and a painting by Monet from his water garden series that sold for a record $84.7m.

The auction saw the sale of 44 lots in total from the billionaire oil scion’s lauded modern art collection, including celebrated works by Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse.

The highlight of the Tuesday sale in New York was Young Girl with a Flower Basket, a 1905 Picasso that fetched $115m, the second-highest price at auction for the artist.

Sales were due to continue on Wednesday and Thursday. Branded as a once-in-a-generation chance for global collectors to buy some of the world’s most significant pieces still in private hands, the auction could be the first to raise $1bn in total.



“This is not just a New York event,” said Jonathan Rendell, Christie’s deputy chairman. “It’s a world event. It is an exceptional sale.”

Bidding for the piece started at $90m under the evening’s auctioneer, Christie’s global president, Jussi Pylkkänen, and lasted only a few minutes. Some reports have suggested the final price may have disappointed the auction house, which had not published a public estimate.

Paintings by Monet and Matisse also garnered new record prices for the artists. Monet’s Water Lilies in Bloom, completed between 1914 and 1917, sold for a record $84.7m and Matisse’s Odalisque Reclining with Magnolias sold for a record $80.7m.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Monet’s painting on display at Christie’s auction house in New York on Tuesday. Photograph: Alba Vigaray/EPA

Bidding for the Monet was drawn out between five separate buyers, regularly drawing gasps from the hundreds of attendees at the sale house as the bids increased at $1m intervals.

“It’s like a tennis game with five rackets,” Pylkkänen told the room. Eventually the painting went to an anonymous buyer over the phone.

After the sale of the showpiece Picasso, a number of the attendees at the ticket-only event began to exit the auction, pouring out on to the street as a line of limousines waited outside. It was only the 15th lot of the evening.

Seven of the lots in Tuesday’s sale went for over $30m, and the evening’s total far surpassed the record for single session, single owner sale, previously held by the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent’s auction, which grossed $484m in 2009.

The proceeds of the sale will be distributed to a number of philanthropies Rockefeller and his wife, Peggy, supported in their lifetimes.

Rockefeller was the last surviving grandson of the Standard Oil founder John D Rockefeller when he died in March 2017 at the age of 101. He and Peggy had been married for more than 50 years. She died in 1996.



The couple amassed a massive collection of art, furniture, ceramics, statuary and decor. The collection also includes items that were passed down from previous Rockefeller generations.

Art of the Americas will go on the block on Wednesday night. It includes works from Willem de Kooning, Edward Hopper and John Singer Sargent. Other sale sessions at Christie’s will focus on furniture, ceramics and decorations, while an online auction will offer personal mementoes, lamps and lighting and tableware.

Among the high-profile items is a porcelain dessert service that Napoleon took with him into exile. Many predict the total estate proceeds from the glittering multi-day auction could exceed $1bn, which would represent a record.

The Associated Press contributed to this report