Sotheby's London staged a high-profile evening of modern and Impressionist art, with strong results across two linked sales drawn from the collection of British investor Joe Lewis. The first session, titled Masterpieces from the Lewis Collection, reached £296 million ($390 million), setting a new benchmark for a single-owner collection sold in London.
The standout lot was Amedeo Modigliani's Nu assis au collier (1917-18), which sold for £48.2 million ($63.5 million) and became the night's top result. Claude Monet's Nymphéas (1907) followed at £40.8 million ($54 million), while Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Gertrud Loew (1902) achieved £36.2 million ($47.6 million) after active bidding from an Asian collector.
The sale also featured major names including Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Henri Matisse, Edgar Degas, Lucian Freud, and Banksy, reflecting continued demand for works with rarity, strong provenance, and art-historical weight. Sotheby's noted that Asian collectors played a major role, bidding on half of the Lewis collection lots and securing more than a third of the works offered.
In the second auction, Helena Newman and Alex Branchyk oversaw a more measured pace, though several lots still delivered notable outcomes. Marlow Moss set a new record, and Monet's market once again showed its strength as Nymphéas confirmed the artist's enduring global appeal. The evening closed with a clear signal: collectors remain focused on iconic works that combine cultural significance with lasting value.
This result suggests that the upper tier of the art market may continue to be shaped by landmark works, selective buying, and global collector interest in the years ahead.
