Christie’s will auction René Magritte’s L’empire des lumières (1954) during November’s marquee New York sale season. Its estimate of “in excess” of $95 million would mark a new auction record for a work by the French Surrealist.
The painting, which translates to “The Empire of Light,” is one of 27 similarly-titled works that Magritte painted between the 1940s and ’60s. Each work in the series depicts a scene that appears to be simultaneously day and night. The most valuable work from the series, L’empire des lumières (1961), sold at Sotheby’s London in 2022, setting the artist’s record at £59.42 million ($79.24 million). The second-highest price for a work by Magritte at auction also belongs to a work from the same series: L’empire des lumières (1961), which sold for $42.27 million at Sotheby’s New York last May.
It comes to auction as part of “MICA: The Collection Of Mica Ertegun,” a series of five sales from the collection of the late furniture designer Mica Ertegun, who passed away last December at the age of 97. Other highlights from the sale include Joan Miró’s Peinture (Amour) (1925), David Hockney’s Chairs with a Section of a Picasso Mural (1970), a chaise longue by Ingrid Donat, as well as another painting by Magritte, La cour d’amour (1960). Full details of the lots have yet to be announced.
“Her generous embrace of other cultures is reflected in the collection’s range, with Russian and Ukrainian Modernism hanging side-by-side with Ruscha, Hockney, and Miró, and the very best of Surrealism with De Stijl, Purism, and Color Field,” said Max Carter, Christie’s vice chairman of 20th- and 21st-century art. “But of all the works she lived with, Magritte’s L’empire des lumières most nearly captures her aesthetic philosophy in its balance and restraint.
“An icon of Surrealism, the Ertegun Magritte is arguably the finest, most deftly rendered and hauntingly beautiful of the series. Like Mica’s eye, it is perfect.”
The series of five sales will commence on November 19th, at Christie’s New York, and conclude with an online sale that ends on December 18th.
