Magritte’s ‘L’empire des lumières’ could fetch $95M at Christie’s New York auction

Editor's Note: This was originally published by The Art Newspaper , an editorial partner of CNN Style.

A rare painting from René Magritte's famous "L'empire des lumières" series is estimated to sell for more than $95 million at Christie's New York this fall, a sum that would break the Surrealist artist's record at auction and represent a major win for the auction house after softened sales across the industry.

"L'empire des lumières," from 1954, is one of the 27 paintings in which Magritte explored light by painting a sunlit sky above a darkened street scene.

In 2022, another one of the works from the series nearly tripled the Belgian artist's previous record when it sold for £59.4 million (then $79.7 million) at Sotheby's in London.

The present painting comes from the estate of the late Mica Ertegun, an interior designer who was married to Ahmet Ertegun, a co-founder of Atlantic Records and a prolific art collector.

Other works to be included in the sales of her collection include pieces by household names like Joan Miró, David Hockney and even a Polaroid photo of Ertegun herself taken by Andy Warhol.

"But of all the works she lived with, Magritte's 'L'empire des lumières' most nearly captures her aesthetic philosophy in its balance and restraint," Max Carter, Christie's vice chairman of 20th and 21st century art, said in a statement. "An icon of Surrealism, the Ertegun Magritte is arguably the finest, most deftly rendered and hauntingly beautiful of the series. Like Mica's eye, it is perfect."

A dedicated evening sale of Ertegun's collection will be held on November 19 in New York, along with subsequent daytime auctions and two online sales.

A "significant portion" of the proceeds will go toward philanthropic initiatives, an auction house spokesperson said. During her life, Ertegun supported causes like the Graduate Scholarship Programme in the Humanities at Oxford University, Jazz at Lincoln Center and the World Monuments Fund.

Christie's reported in July that its total revenue from live and online auction sales during the first half of 2024 had reached $2.1 billion worldwide, representing a 22% year-on-year drop and roughly $600 million less than the opening six months of 2023. However, other metrics like sell-through rates, the percentage of lots that lead to completed sales, remained healthy. Last week, the auction house revealed it is acquiring Gooding & Company , a collector car auctioneer, 17 years after exiting the car market.