According to the auction house, pieces by Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, and Gustav Klimt each broke individual records for those artists when they sold for more than $100 million (£88 million).
Before his passing in 2018, Allen sponsored a number of charities, and the money from the sale will be given to them.
According to Christie’s, Seurat’s famous pointillism works Les Poseuses, Ensemble (small version), from 1888, sold for $149.2 million (£131 million), fees included.
According to experts, the ultra-wealthy see art as a secure investment in the midst of a turbulent global economy and Russia’s conflict in Ukraine.
Other pieces that set records included Van Gogh’s Orchard with Cypresses, which sold for $117.2 million (£103 million), Gauguin’s Maternity II, which fetched $105.7 million (£93 million), and Klimt’s Birch Forest, which sold for $104.6 million (£92 million).
Along with sculptures by Alexander Calder and Max Ernst, paintings by Georgia O’Keefe, Claude Monet, David Hockney, Andrew Wyeth, and Pablo Picasso were also sold.
The entire value of the collection has already broken the previous record, which was achieved earlier this year when a rich New York couple sold their Macklowe collection for $922 million (£810 million).
In 1975, Mr. Allen and his childhood friend Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft.
After receiving treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2009, the illness came back, and in 2018 it claimed his life due to its consequences.
He promised in 2010 that he would donate most of his wealth to charity when he passed away. With an estimated $13.5 billion (then £8.8 billion), he was the 37th richest man in the world at the time, according to Forbes magazine.
A further 90 lots from his collection will be sold.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.