Lempertz Evening Sale Totals Over €10M, Lehmbruck Marble Sculpture Sets Record
The Facts
On June 7, 2026, Lempertz announced that its Evening Sale of Modern and Contemporary Art on June 5 generated more than €10 million, led by a record price for a marble sculpture by Wilhelm Lehmbruck. The privately owned 'Frauenbüste (Büste Frau L.)' sold for €850,000 (including fees), surpassing its €450,000 estimate. The work had been held by the same family for 114 years after Cologne patron Hermann Hertz acquired it from the artist at the 1912 Sonderbund Exhibition. Proceeds from four works consigned by the Worcester Art Museum—including Pierre-Auguste Renoir's 'Coco mangeant sa soupe' (€508,000) and paintings by Karl Hofer, Bernard Buffet, and Maurice Utrillo—will fund a new museum acquisition.
The Signal
Contemporary works performed strongly, with Zdeněk Sýkora's 'Line No. 145' achieving €633,000 and Georg Baselitz's 'Borke' selling for €544,000. Yoshitomo Nara's painting brought €607,000 against a €350,000 estimate. The sale confirms sustained demand for museum-quality Modernist sculpture and for blue-chip European post-war artists at auction, even as the market sees mixed signals elsewhere. Lempertz's success with deaccessioned works from a U.S. museum reflects a growing transatlantic practice of collections recycling to fund fresh acquisitions.
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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
- Auction Houses: Lempertz
- Museums: Worcester Art Museum
- Locations: Cologne, Massachusetts
- Prices: €850,000, €508,000, €198,000, €92,000, €52,800, €544,000, €633,000, €607,000, €99,000, €145,000, €55,000, over €10 million
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