UPDATE: The Ferrari GTO was sold for a record US$51.7 million (RM244mil). Its auction price was surpassed only by that of a Mercedes 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe that went for 135 million euros (RM694mil) in 2022.
NEW YORK: Against a backdrop of wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as worldwide inflation, the two titans of the sector — Sotheby's and Christie's — will be moving a host of big-ticket lots, though they may still have a hard time topping last year, when total sales hit a record US$16 billion (RM75bil).
Sotheby's, owned by the French-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi, could come away with the lion's share of this year's proceeds after its autumn sales from Nov 7-15 in New York, one of the top global hubs of both art and finance.
Its rival Christie's, which belongs to the Artemis holding group of fellow French billionaire Francois Pinault, is putting between US$720 million and US$1 billion in lots under the hammer in the coming days.
Fifty years after his death, Pablo Picasso is expected to be one of the blockbusters this season with the sale of a major work: "Femme a la montre", or "Woman with a Watch".
The depiction of the French painter Marie-Therese Walter, one of Picasso's muses, could fetch as much as US$120 million, according to pre-auction estimates.
One of the highlights of the fall sales, however, will not be a painting or a sculpture, but a car.
The luxury automobile subsidiary RM Sotheby's will auction off a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO on Monday for a price of "more than US$60 million (RM281mil)", one of its managers, Michael Caimano, said.
Owned by an American collector for 40 years, it is expected to be the most expensive Ferrari 250 GTO ever sold — one of the Italian legends was bought in 2018 at RM Sotheby's for US$48 million.
If it matches the estimate, it would also be the second-most expensive car ever sold, behind one of only two examples of the Mercedes 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe from 1955, sold for 135 million euros (RM675mil) by RM Sotheby's and Mercedes-Benz at a confidential auction in 2022 at the German manufacturer's museum in Stuttgart.
"Whatever happens in the financial markets, a car of this calibre is a collector's item, a unique opportunity in the life of a collector," said Caimano, comparing it to a work of art that one "can touch, smell and hear".
Auction houses are enjoying a healthy art and luxury goods market, driven by China and showing no signs of a slowdown, said Kelsey Reed Leonard, head of contemporary art sales at Sotheby's.
