{"id":245373,"date":"2025-05-17T14:35:02","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T14:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/aerospace\/colorful-grid-painting-by-piet-mondrian-fetches-47-6-million-at-auction\/"},"modified":"2025-05-17T14:35:02","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T14:35:02","slug":"colorful-grid-painting-by-piet-mondrian-fetches-47-6-million-at-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=245373","title":{"rendered":"Colorful Grid Painting by Piet Mondrian Fetches $47.6 Million at Auction"},"content":{"rendered":"


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While it went for well below the auction house\u2019s estimate, \u201cComposition With Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue\u201d is now the Dutch artist\u2019s third highest-selling work<\/h2>\n
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Lillian Ali<\/a><\/p>\n

– Staff Contributor<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Composition
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Composition With Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue<\/em>, Piet Mondrian, 1922
\n Christie’s<\/span>
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A 1922 painting by Piet Mondrian<\/a> fetched $47.6 million at auction, becoming the Dutch artist\u2019s third highest-selling work.<\/p>\n

Titled Composition With Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue<\/em><\/a>, the artwork features Mondrian\u2019s signature grid-like patterns and bright colors, including a large red square. Experts at Christie\u2019s<\/a> had expected it to sell for around $50 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cRed always helps, simple as it is, because it\u2019s a color people like,\u201d Alex Rotter, Christie\u2019s president, tells the Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>\u2019s Kelly Crow.<\/p>\n

If it had sparked a bidding war, it could have broken the artist\u2019s auction record of $51 million, set by Composition No. II<\/em><\/a> <\/em>(1930) in 2022.<\/p>\n

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\"Composition

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Composition No. II<\/em>, Piet Mondrian, 1930<\/p>\n

Alexi Rosenfeld \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, the May 12 auction attracted only one bidder, who purchased the piece for $41 million (or $47.6 million with fees).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a fantastic picture,\u201d Hugo Nathan of the art advisory Beaumont Nathan tells Artnet<\/em><\/a>\u2019s Katya Kazakina. \u201cBut the market at those very high levels is quite tricky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in the Netherlands in 1872, Mondrian began his artistic career<\/a> by painting landscapes and Cubist works. However, he\u2019s famous for the style he developed in the 1920s, when he was in his 40s and 50s. His best-known pieces<\/a> feature clean lines, eye-popping colors and abstract canvases filled with geometric shapes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile prevailing artistic trends in post-war Europe favored a return to figuration and classical ideals, Mondrian pursued his own unique form of pure abstraction\u2014a groundbreaking and thoroughly modern approach to painting in service of the creation of a universal visual language,\u201d Vanessa Fusco, head of Impressionist and modern art at Christie\u2019s, says in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Composition With Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue<\/em> had belonged to Louise Riggio, the wife of Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Christie\u2019s secured the collection by offering the Riggio estate an undisclosed guarantee, promising a minimum price regardless of the auction\u2019s success. To offset its own risk, Christie\u2019s arranged for outside buyers to place pre-sale bids on certain lots.<\/p>\n

For that reason, many lots didn\u2019t have \u201ca bounce,\u201d or more bidding following a first bid, Rotter tells Artnet<\/em>. \u201cWe had to manage our risk portfolio,\u201d Rotter says. \u201cThis is the art market in the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of those one-bid lots was the Mondrian composition, which appears to have been purchased by its guarantor.<\/p>\n

In total, the Riggio collection made $272 million, including fees. Without fees, though, the sale fell short of Christie\u2019s $252 million estimate, according to the\u00a0New York Times<\/em><\/a>\u2019 Zachary Small and Tim F. Schneider.<\/em> Many of the guarantees placed lots below their estimated values. For example, Pablo Picasso\u2019s M\u00e8re et Enfant<\/em> (1922) sold for $6 million, though it was expected to fetch at least $9 million.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Artnet<\/em>, art adviser Ralph DeLuca describes these \u201clow-margin\u201d third-party guarantees as \u201cblood sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, some experts think the Mondrian\u2019s price tag was inflated to begin with. \u201cOverpricing at the start was a deterrent with many collectors, despite the quality and rarity of the work,\u201d art dealer Brett Gorvy tells the Times.<\/em><\/p>\n

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