Microsoft co-founder Paul G Allen’s art collection sets auction record, crosses $1 billion mark

At one of the most highly-anticipated auctions, featuring significant masterpieces from the late Microsoft co-founder Paul G Allen’s art collection, several records were smashed on day one of the two-day sale at Chrie’s New York. Garnering over $1 billion, it has become the biggest sale of a single-owner art collection in auction hory, breaking the $922 million record set at Sothe’s the Macklowe collection — belonging to American real estate mogul Harry Macklowe and his ex-wife Linda — in May.
Being held in the presence of several prominent art dealers in the room, and numerous from Asia making bids on the phone, several individual works crossed the $100 million mark. While Georges Seurat’s Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version) sold for $149 million, Paul Cézanne’s 1888-90 La Montagne Sainte-Victoire fetched $138 million. Vincent van Gogh’s Verger avec cyprès sold for $117 million, and Gustav Klimt’s 1903 Birch Forest got $105 million.

 
Spanning over 500 years, the collection built Allen from the 1990s onwards includes several significant works. The lots on auction are only a selection. The proceeds from its sale will go to charity as per the will of Allen, who passed away in 2018 from septic shock due to complications from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He was 65.
“This is an unprecedented moment, worthy of the collector and the arts whose work he pursued. ‘Visionary: The Paul G. Allen Collection’ brings together masterpieces in support of philanthropy on an epic scale. It’s hard to imagine that this is the result of one man’s passionate pursuit of excellence, but Paul G. Allen was indeed a visionary, and he was drawn to arts who shared his genius for seeing our world in new ways and explaining it to us new means. Chrie’s is honored to be able to make this horic sale come to life and share it with the world,” stated Marc Porter, Chairman, Chrie’s Americas, in a press release issued Chrie’s in September.
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