#sothebys-new-york

#sothebys-new-york

A rare bar in the shape of a hippopotamus by François-Xavier Lalanne sold for $31.4m (with fees) at a Sotheby's design auction in New York on Wednesday (10 December), breaking the artist's secondary-market record and becoming the most valuable design object ever sold at auction. Like many of the whimsical-yet-practical designs created by Lalanne (and in collaboration with his wife and design partner Claude Lalanne), the hippo is a fully functioning bar.

Vincent van Gogh's (November-December 1887) sold for $62.7m at Sotheby's, New York on 20 November, a record price for one of the artist's works painted in Paris. It did considerably better than expected, since the initial pre-sale estimate (without fees) was $40m. The final result almost doubled the previous highest price at auction for a work from the artist's Paris period, the $33.2m paid for Corner of a Garden with Butterflies (May-July 1887), which sold at Christie's last year.