Pferd, an important painting by the German Expressionist painter Franz Marc, sold for £1,095,063 at Bonhams Impressionist and Modern Art sale in London today (10 October). Unseen in public for 70 years and never before offered at auction, it had an estimate of £350,000-550,000.
The sale made a total of £6,955,750 with 85% by lot, 94% by value. The total included £1,385,000 for ten works from the collection of Sir Warwick and Lady Fairfax, among the highlights of which were:
• L'un des Bourgeois de Calais: Ètude de nu monumentale pour Pierre de Wissant by Auguste Rodin sold for £675,063. It had been estimated at £400,000-600,000. The sculpture relates to one of the artist's most career defining subjects: The Burghers of Calais.
• Cheval au bord de la mare by Edgar Degas which sold for £225,063. Executed circa 1892 it had an estimate of £100,000-150,000.
Other sale highlights included:
• Nu aux Mains Croisées by Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita sold for £1,695,063 having been estimated at £800,000-1,200,000. Painted in 1924 – a key time in Foujita's artistic development, the work presents afresh the Western canon of nudes through the artist's own interpretation of Japanese calligraphic technique.
• Satan et un adorateur by Auguste Rodin which sold for £168,813. The drawing, once in the collection of Sir William Rothenstein, caught the imagination of bidders to exceed its pre-sale estimate of £8,000-12,000.
• Dance de Joie by the Polish painter, Bolesław Biegas that sold for £112,562, a new world record at auction for the artist. It had been estimated at £50,000-70,000.