a painting by the Belgian surrealist René Magritte has just sold for $121.2 million, a record for the artist. “The Empire of Light,” an eerie night-time streetscape below a pale blue daytime sky, sold tuesday november 19 2024 as part of Christie’s sale of the collection of interior designer Mica Ertegun, who died last year at age 97.
The sale lifts Magritte into the ranks of artists whose works have gone for more than $100 million at auction. Magritte is the 16th member of the club, which also includes Leonardo da Vinci, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, according to the market analyst firm Artprice.
“The Empire of Light,” executed in 1954, was one of 17 versions of the same scene that Magritte painted in oil. Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s Americas, called the sale “a historic moment in our saleroom.”
The $121.2 million price included the auction house’s fees. The buyer was a telephone bidder whose identity was not disclosed.
The most beautiful thing of this painting is "light". We all need light, but the feeling of light is hard to describe. it is abstract, vague and temporal. This painting is not symbolic compare to other his artworks, however, its amazing feeling of light is impressive and worth to sold in an extreme high price. As you said: art is in the eye of the beholder, different sudience have different feelings of that painting. maybe someone thought it is normal, maybe someone like it.
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