Lempertz Evening Sale Totals Over €10M, Led by Record Lehmbruck Marble at €850K
The Facts
On June 7, 2026, Lempertz announced that its Evening Sale of Modern and Contemporary Art, held on June 5, 2026, generated total proceeds of over €10 million, including the Day Sale and Photography auction. The top lot was Wilhelm Lehmbruck's marble sculpture 'Frauenbüste (Büste Frau L.)', which sold for €850,000 (including tax and fees), a record for a marble work by the artist, against an estimate of €450,000. The piece had been in the same family for 114 years since being acquired directly from the artist at the 1912 Sonderbund Exhibition. Pierre-Auguste Renoir's 'Coco mangeant sa soupe' sold for €508,000, one of four works consigned by the Worcester Art Museum, which will use proceeds for a new acquisition. Contemporary highlights included Zdeněk Sýkora's 'Line No. 145' at €633,000, Georg Baselitz's 'Borke' at €544,000, and Yoshitomo Nara's work at €607,000, well above its €350,000 estimate.
The Signal
The sale underscores the enduring strength of the German auction market for museum-quality Modernist works, particularly those with deep provenance. The Lehmbruck record signals that private collectors are willing to pay significant premiums for rare, untouched works from historic collections. The strong performance of Czech artist Zdeněk Sýkora, consistently achieving high prices at Lempertz, points to a sustained niche market for Eastern European geometric abstraction. The Worcester Art Museum's deaccessioning—a practice more common in the U.S. than Europe—highlights an ongoing institutional strategy to refresh collections, which can create opportunities for collectors to acquire museum-provenanced works.
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- Artists: Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Karl Hofer, Bernard Buffet, Maurice Utrillo, Georg Baselitz, Zdeněk Sýkora, Yoshitomo Nara, Cosima von Bonin, Olafur Eliasson
- People: Hermann Hertz, Jan Bykowski
- Auction Houses: Lempertz
- Museums: Worcester Art Museum
- Locations: Cologne
- Prices: €850,000, €508,000, €633,000, €544,000, €607,000, €99,000, €145,000, €55,000, €450,000, €350,000, €198,000, €92,000, €52,800
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