Sotheby’s Paris Breaks French Record with €89.7 Million Sales; Modigliani Work Tops at €27 Million

Amedeo Modigliani's Elvire en buste (1918-19) sold for a record-breaking 27 million euros in Paris. Cover picture of Niccolo Pasqualetti SS26 by Jay Zoo for DAM. 

Paris has once again asserted its growing dominance in the global art market. During Art Basel week, Sotheby’s Paris shattered its own record with a combined total of €89.7 million across its Modernités and Surrealism and Its Legacy auctions, the highest result ever achieved by the auction house in France. The sales underscored both the vitality of the Paris scene and collectors’ resurgent appetite for 20th-century masterpieces, writes Jeanne-Marie Cilento

The Sotheby's auction in Paris

where the Modigliani painting

went under the hammer.

AN HISTORIC moment at Sotheby's in Paris ignited a fierce bidding war among seven collectors for Amedeo Modigliani’s Elvire en buste (1918–19), before selling for €27 million, the highest price ever paid for the artist in France and a new record for the auction house in the French capital. 

The work, unseen in public for half a century, had remained in a private collection since 1974. Its appearance on the market marked the first time any portrait of Elvira by Modigliani had been offered at auction.

The result more than quadrupled its initial estimate, anchoring a night that confirmed the Italian painter’s continued magnetism among global collectors. Another of Modigliani’s works, Raymond, believed to depict the writer Raymond Radiguet, fetched €10.6 million after spirited bidding, further underlining the artist’s enduring appeal.

Together, the two paintings accounted for over a third of the Modernités total, which reached €62.8 million, surpassing pre-sale expectations by more than €10 million. Strong results also came from Alberto Giacometti’s Figurine, which more than doubled its estimate at €571,500, and Wols’ L’Oeil de Dieu, which achieved a record €1.9 million. A complete set of Pablo Picasso’s Séries 347 etchings, one of the rarest print series in his oeuvre, sold for the same amount, setting a French record for any Picasso print series.

René Magritte’s La magie noire doubled its estimate to reach €10.7 million, a record for any work from the Belgian artist’s celebrated series

Rene Magritte's La Magie noire 

doubled its estimate at auction, 

The Surrealism and Its Legacy sale followed with equally impressive results, bringing in €26.9 million, the second-highest total ever for a Surrealist auction in France. 

René Magritte’s La magie noire (at right) led the session, doubling its estimate to reach €10.7 million, a record for any work from the Belgian artist’s celebrated series. Paul Delvaux’s Woman with a Rose also set a new French benchmark at €2.4 million, while Óscar Domínguez, Konrad Klapheck, and Wols each achieved personal bests in the country.

Adding to the momentum, Salvador Dalí’s Swirling Sea Necklace exceeded expectations at €736,600, and Francis Picabia’s Lu-Li more than doubled its estimate at €508,000. In all, nearly 90% of lots sold, with over 60% making their auction debut, and a notable one-third of Surrealist buyers hailing from the United States, a sign of Paris’s growing international draw.

Presented in collaboration with the French fashion house Celine, the twin auctions demonstrated how Paris, long regarded as the cultural heart of Europe, is reclaiming its stature as a powerhouse in the global art economy. The record-setting performance follows a string of strong sales in London and New York, but the magnitude of this result, more than 50% higher than last year’s edition, signals a broader shift.

For Sotheby’s, the outcome cements its Paris headquarters as a concourse for the international market. For collectors, it reaffirms that the French capital, once again, is where art history and market confidence converge, and where the legacy of modern and Surrealist masters continues to inspire feverish competition under the auctioneer’s gavel.