Christie's auction set a new record for the value of Kandinsky's works. The painting “Sketch for Improvisation No. 8” was sold for $23 million. For more details, see Kommersant FM art columnist Dmitry Butkevich.

The auction should be considered very successful. Christie's received total sales of $205 million, which is quite a large sum. This is by far the largest amount received in a single auction this auction season. There were some very impressive results. The most expensive lot went for $43,762.5 million. This is “Water Lilies” by Claude Monet. It must be said that this is not a record for this artist, since very similar “Water Lilies” were sold for 71.5 million in 2008. True, those “Water Lilies” were twice as large on the bottom side, and this is an important fact when selling a work of art.

And the world record is very pleasant for us: Wassily Kandinsky’s painting “Study for Improvisation No. 8” from 1909, quite early, went for $23.42.5 million. I will say that Kandinsky did not reach such heights. Its previous highest amount was 19 million and was received back in 1990. And now the amount is higher, this is a world record, I repeat. Although I must say that I expected, for example, more, since the estimate of the painting was $20-30 million, that is, it went a little higher than the lower estimate. However, there is a world record.

A few more good results: this is a work by Miro, which went for $13.7 million, and a sculpture by Constantin Brancusi for 12.5 million. Picasso - an ordinary regular, the winner of all auctions, trades - this time ended up in fourth place, 13.074 million for the next his portrait of Marie-Therese Walter.

On the night of Thursday to Friday there will be a similar auction at Sotheby's, which was postponed from the 5th due to traffic collapse and traffic problems in New York. We also expect serious results there, since Picasso is in the lead there. Four of his works can be rated very highly by buyers.

Kandinsky's painting "Sketch for Improvisation No. 8" was kept in Switzerland in a private collection for more than 50 years.

"Kandinsky never reached such heights"