Never before has so much been paid at auction for the work of Piet Mondrian: in New York, a painting by the Dutch artist Monday (1872-1944) a record $51 million (approximately 49 million euros). It’s about Composition II.
The canvas from 1930 is seen as a special work because it is characteristic of Mondrian’s oeuvre. He painted about 120 similar paintings in which the canvas is dominated by a grid of black lines with different color areas in red, blue and yellow. In October, the record revenue for the work was already expected by auction house Sotheby’s. A similar work by the Dutchman already fetched 50.6 million dollars (including auction costs) at another auction house in 2015.
In 1983 it became Composition II last auctioned at auction house Christie’s in London. At that time it raised more than 2 million dollars, which was a record for a Mondrian at the time. Via Japan and New York it ended up with a London collector, who had owned the work since 2004. Composition II has been sold to an anonymous Asian collector, ANP news agency reports.
Read also: In the footsteps of Piet Mondrian through the Netherlands