A Roman Imperial Torso Set a New Antiquities Record at Sotheby’s as the Art World Looked Elsewhere
Observer · · g2988507
While London and Paris dominated the headlines, a $34.3 million marble led a white-glove evening that totaled $63 million, far above estimates, with antiquities, Old Masters and Islamic art inspiring spirited bidding. Across centuries and categories, the Magnum Opus sale painted a revealing picture of how certain works have performed on the secondary market over time.
Billed as one of the most consequential assemblages of art and objects spanning the ancient to modern eras, the highly anticipated Magnum Opus collection came to the block at Sotheby's New York at a particularly busy moment, when much of the art world’s attention was fixed on London and Paris. This may have let the sale slip somewhat under the radar despite its record-breaking results. Held on Oct. 21, the Magnum Opus Evening Auction generated $63 million, with 100 percent of its 64 lots sold. The sale far exceeded expectations, surpassing its $47.6 million high presale estimate and, in a single evening, topping the $60 million initially projected for the entire first series of New York auctions.
“In more than 50 years in this field, I have encountered very few collections that achieve what this one does—a true coherence of vision across such extraordinary breadth,” Sotheby’s chairman George Wachter said in a statement when the sale was announced. Across its 25 categories, he emphasized, every object reflected the same discerning eye while probing connections among some of the finest expressions of human creativity across time.
Leading the sale was a monumental Roman Imperial torso, which fetched $34.3 million after a fierce 14-minute bidding battle among five collectors. Backed by a guarantee and an irrevocable bid, the torso soared past its $8-12 million estimate. Dating to the first half of the first century A.D., the marble probably represents one of the Julio-Claudian emperors who ruled during that period; its closest parallels are in museum collections, including the Vatican Museums and the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb. Carved in two parts and remarkably well preserved, the figure can still be envisioned standing solemnly, wearing a tunic, a leather corselet with fringed lappets falling at the waist and shoulders, a bronze cuirass and a paludamentum draped from the left shoulder across the back and originally over the extended left forearm. The breastplate is decorated in relief as part of an elaborate symbolic motif: the god Sol emerges from the waters in a frontal quadriga on the chest, while two Victories flank a trophy hung with shields on the abdomen.
Believed to have come from Salona in Dalmatia, possibly from one of the twin temples at the northeast corner of the forum, the sculpture was documented as owned by Aloys Maximilian Neumann (1829-1906), who acquired it in Split, in the Kingdom of Dalmatia, in the mid-19th century. It remained with his heirs until Sotheby’s 2010 sale, when an Austrian collector bought it for $7.36 million. Its value has more than quadrupled in the decade and a half since, and the latest result sets a new world auction record for any Roman antiquity. An extensive exhibition history attests to its importance, including long-term loans to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Yale University Art Gallery. It was most recently on public view at the J. Paul Getty Museum, on loan from 2021 to 2024.
Another top lot was Canaletto’s Venice, View of the Grand Canal Looking East with Santa Maria della Salute , which sold for $6.2 million, within its $6-8 million estimate. The painting carried an exceptional exhibition and ownership history, having spent more than 60 years in the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dating from circa 1740, the canvas has been described as one of the artist’s finest Venetian vistas and has been widely exhibited, at venues including the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, the Met, the National Gallery in Athens, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and Beijing’s National Museum of China. It last sold at Sotheby’s in 2020 for $5,275,600, against an estimate of $3-5 million.
Other top results included Still Life with Oranges, Nuts and Spices, Boxes of Sweetmeats, a Jug, and a Cask by 18th-century Spanish still-life painter Luis Meléndez , which realized $5 million, landing midway through its $4-6 million estimate. The painting was on long-term loan to the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2018 and 2019.
Backed by a guarantee, 17th-century Dutch painter Jacob van Ruisdael ’s View of Haarlem from the Northwest sold at its $2.5 million low estimate. The painting has an extensive exhibition history and was on long-term loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1951 to 1995 and to London’s National Gallery throughout 2019.
A Roman Imperial marble portrait head of a girl from the Augustan period also achieved $2.5 million, squarely hitting its low estimate. When Sotheby’s sold the work in 2014 for $2,225,000, it set the auction record for an ancient Classical marble female portrait head. The latest sale surpassed that benchmark by $275,000, establishing a new record in the category. The sculpture’s distinguished provenance includes Sir D'Arcy Godolphin Osborne and Prince Johannes von Schwarzenberg , and it has been exhibited at Munich’s Glyptothek, the Met and the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Among the evening’s highlights was the particularly animated bidding for Gustav Klimt ’s Liegender Halbakt nach rechts (Reclining Semi-Nude Facing Right) , one of the earliest preparatory studies for the artist’s lost masterpiece Leda , offering a rare glimpse of the painting destroyed at Immendorf Castle in 1945. Pursued for several minutes by bidders on the phone and in the room, it sold to an online bidder for $281,600 against a $120,000-180,000 estimate. The consignor had acquired it at Christie's London in 2008 for £96,500, approximately $190,000 at the time, a 48 percent appreciation in nominal dollar value over 18 years.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s Head of an Old Man attracted four bidders and sold for $1.5 million with fees. The work was acquired at Christie’s New York in 2011, when it fetched $1,370,500 against an estimate of $500,000-700,000, a nominal increase of 12.1 percent over nearly 16 years. It previously belonged to George A. Rentschler of Cincinnati and remained with his descendants until the 2011 sale.
A fierce bidding battle among four participants—online, in the room and on the phone—pushed a Royal Louis XIV Savonnerie carpet fragment, circa 1664-66, to $217,600 against an estimate of $50,000-70,000. Part of the eighth or ninth carpet intended for the Galerie d’Apollon at the Palais du Louvre and woven by the Chaillot workshop of the Lourdet family, the fragment features a radiating sun motif, linking it to the grand decorative program of carpets commissioned in honor of the Sun King. The consignor had acquired it at Sotheby’s London in 2016 for £87,500.
Another carpet fragment drew attention, particularly among collectors of Islamic art: the Bernheimer Safavid ‘Vase’-Technique Carpet Fragment, made in Persia around 1600, which achieved $448,000, comfortably within its $350,000-500,000 estimate. First exhibited in 1926 at the Arts Club of Chicago’s “Loan Exhibition of Early Oriental Carpets,” it has been described by experts as one of the finest surviving vase-technique carpets. Other carpets and fragments performed far less strongly, generally selling close to or below their low estimates.
Five bidders pursued an Iznik pottery border tile from Turkey, dated circa 1570, which sold to a bidder in the room for $61,440 with fees over a $50,000 high estimate. The opening lot of the sale, the tile features the distinctive Ottoman çintamani motif, combining three spots with wavy bands traditionally associated with leopard markings and tiger stripes, symbols of power, rulership and good fortune. Its provenance is equally notable: it once belonged to Heinrich Jacoby , the prominent carpet dealer and collector behind PETAG, a Berlin-based firm specializing in luxury Persian carpets, and its design inspired the çintamani emblem that became PETAG’s signature, woven into its carpets. The tile has been exhibited multiple times at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg and the Sheffield City Museum and Art Gallery.
Another Iznik tile, dated circa 1565-75 and related to two large 21-tile panels at the Louvre in Paris, was offered immediately afterward and sold above estimate for $53,760. Later in the sale, two elongated Iznik tiles also exceeded their high estimates, selling for $61,445 and $76,500, respectively.
Another highlight among the antiquities was a Greek bronze anatomical cuirass, possibly discarded after a battle fought in the last third of the fourth century B.C. or the first quarter of the third century B.C. Pursued by four bidders, it more than doubled its low estimate, achieving $704,000 against expectations of $300,000-500,000. When it last came to auction, at Sotheby’s New York in 2012, it sold for $632,500 with fees, 322 percent above its high estimate.
On the modern side, Auguste Rodin ’s virtuoso bronze Torse d’Adèle more than doubled its high estimate, achieving $332,800 against expectations of $100,000-150,000. Originally part of the holdings of the Musée Rodin in Paris, it last sold at Sotheby’s London in 2022 for £144,900 against an estimate of £60,000-80,000, an 89 percent increase in nominal dollar value in just over four years.
Two of André Derain’s joyful, colorful gouaches sold for $307,200 and $256,000, respectively. The first, La Danse , had been acquired by the collector at Christie’s in 2023 for $346,500, a decline in nominal dollar value. The second, Les Baigneuses , proved more profitable: acquired at Christie’s London in 2009 for £79,250, approximately $130,000 at the time, it nearly doubled that figure.
These were among the relatively few works whose published provenance referenced another auction house, suggesting how long Sotheby’s had maintained its relationship with the collector and how it may even have helped shape the Magnum Opus collection over the years, before it returned to the house at the conclusion of this extensive and eclectic collecting journey.
The Magnum Opus series continued on Oct. 22 and 23 with three day sales, Figure & Form , Darkness & Light and Ornament & Texture , which generated a combined $7.29 million. Across four sessions, the total reached more than $70 million against a combined estimate of $38-56 million, with a sell-through rate above 98 percent. Further offerings from the collection will appear in sales in New York and Paris in 2027, bringing the overall project to more than 900 works across 26 auctions.