The dinosaur was the cherry on top of this broad-ranged hybrid-style sale, which featured works spanning periods from post-war and contemporary to Impressionist and modern, bringing in a total of $340,851,500, including the buyer’s premium, with an 84 percent sell-through rate by lot and 96 percent by value. Last November, the post-war and contemporary sale at Christie’s brought in $325 million.
Noting the current climate, Christie’s CEO Guillaume Cerutti said the results are “very strong.” “In this market, we can see that innovation, flexibility are key concepts,” Cerutti said at a post-sale press conference online. “We needed to break the boundaries, by mixing Impressionist and modern categories with post-war and contemporary art” and adding Stan at the end for a “thrilling finale.”