Monet Painting Sells for Record $81.4 Million at Christie’s
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-17/monet-painting-sells-for-record-81-4-million-at-christie-s

Claude Monet’s grain stack painting fetched a record $81.4 million for the artist on Wednesday after a 14-minute bidding war.The 1891 canvas, “Meule,” lifted Christie’s Impressionist and modern art evening sale to $246.3 million, a 69 percent jump from the similar auction a year ago. Christie’s also held a special auction last year of 20th century art, “The Artist’s Muse,” which hauled in almost half a billion dollars.

The strong night comes after dampened expectations for this week of bellwether sales in New York. Many sellers chose to sit out the auctions because of market contraction and volatility surrounding the U.S. presidential election. Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips are targeting at least $1 billion in sales during this week’s auctions in New York, down 49 percent from a year ago. Christie’s set auction records for two major artists on Wednesday -- Monet and Wassily Kandinsky whose 1935 abstract composition “Rigide et courbe" fetched $23.3 million, within the estimated range.“We needed to have this auction cycle to boost market confidence,” said Christophe van de Weghe, an art dealer in New York. “We can clearly see tonight that very high-quality art brings very high prices.”