The year almost past has seen no record of the level of the Salvator Mundi of Leonardo da Vinci, who acquired $ 450 million by the emirate of Abu Dhabi, in November 2017, at Christie’s in New York. This Vinci – who is not always exposed, as was announced at the Louvre Abu Dhabi! – drove alone 3% of the global turnover of 2017. Christie’s says that he has actually been paid. But it was not the evidence. This awesome shot media orchestrated by Loïc Gouzer, co-chairman of the department of post-war and contemporary, has not finished to be talked about.

Coup de theatre: this ace marketing 38 years – to the origin of some of the biggest records of the last few years, including The Women of Algiers Picasso auction in 179, with $ 3 million in 2015 – just announced, on 18 December, that he was leaving Christie s. After 7 years of sales and a different style «curatés» to perfection. The intimate friend of Leonardo Di Caprio, known for their commitment to the preservation of the planet, this last said to want to join his cause, before getting back in the art otherwise. Would there be a cause and effect relationship with the Salvator Mundi ? Other twists and turns are to follow.

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This departure marks a turning point for Christie’s after that, in November last, Francis Outred, head to the art of post-war and contemporary Europe, based in London (ten years) and even more of Brett Gorvy, two years ago, left to join Dominique Lévy in his activity as a merchant in New York, to the founding of the entity Lévy Gorvy . Uneasiness prevails in the house undermined by a too great heaviness of the higher authorities. She will have to reinvent itself.

it is Still the case that the price of this Vinci has reached a new level in the art market in the ever higher, ever more expensive, resulting in an escalation of the estimates for take-away key pieces to the competition. Carried by the euphoria, the major auction houses, anglo-saxon have managed to maintain the enthusiasm in 2018. Even if one feels well that it is no longer possible to push too far away from the tables that do not deserve to blows solid guarantees! For proof of that: the award to $ 115 million – not a million more than the level announced of the guarantee assumed by the dealer David Nahmad to the purchaser of the canvas! – for one of the last works of the blue period of Pablo Picasso in movement, Girl with basket flower of 1905, exhibited in the musée d’orsay. This masterpiece atypical of the artist was from the sale Rockefeller, who has allowed Christie’s to boast of having made the «sale of the century» by $ 646 million.

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In New York, «Portrait of an artist» (1972) by David Hockney was sold for $ 90.3 million. DON EMMERT/AFP

The United States remain the first hub before China, the United Kingdom and France and which carries out a balance sheet 2018 relatively stable, placing Sotheby’s in Paris, ahead of Christie’s and Artcurial, steadfast in third place. Nearly a work on the five sold at auction in the world is sold in an auction room american, the report says Artprice. New York city concentrates the most important high-end market of the planet. Modigliani, Picasso, Hockney there have been records of over 100 million dollars in the course of sessions of sales, in the spring and fall, totaling over one billion dollars, all homes combined (Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips). In Paris, the highest bid is that of 16.1 million euros for a chinese vase made miraculously at Sotheby’s, in a shoe box. That is to say, the gap that separates the two places. Not to forget Hong Kong, which has made this year great performance, thanks in particular to Zao Wouki, or even Geneva, with the jewelry, in particular those of Marie-Antoinette.

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London has been much talk of it not for his records but for his punches in the media. On October 5, last, at Sotheby’s, a work of Banksy, Girl with a balloon under the hammer for € 1.2 million, slipped from its frame, to be reduced into thin strips, a few seconds after the hammer blow of the auctioneer. Relayed to a degree like never on social networks, this self-destruction orchestrated by the team of Banksy has shown the excesses of the market and the absurdity of the spiral of the auction.

In London, «the woman with The beret» (1937) by Pablo Picasso was sold for $ 68.7 million. DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP

Here is a list of the top ten works to be the most expensive sold in 2018.

1) Amedeo Modigliani, lying Nude (the left side) , 1917

Never Sotheby’s had sold a painting at this price! On the 14th of may last, in New York, the nude of Modigliani who was in receipt of a guarantee has been awarded 157,2 million dollars. But it did not beat the record for a work by the most Parisian of Italian painters, established in November 2015, by another Naked lying , sold 170,4 million, at Christie s.

2) Pablo Picasso , little Girl with the basket flower , 1905

Awarded $ 115 million at the height of the guarantee, this painting of the blue period was the highlight of the legendary collection of David and Peggy Rockefeller, who has $ 646 million of dollars, in may, at Christie’s, in New York. Before the couple bought it, it was the property of the american art collector Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo, which was frequented by Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse. They had bought it in 1905 for a bite of bread.

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3) David Hockney, Portrait of an artist , 1972

The painting cult of David Hockney has been sold $ 90.3 million in may at Christie’s in New York. It beats the record for a work by a living artist,by dethroning Balloon Dog (Orange ), by Jeff Koons, sold for 58.4 million dollars, in 2013, also in Christie’s in New York. This large canvas, 1972, representative Peter Schlesinger, the former lover of the painter, was for a time subject to any guarantee, that is to say, minimum price provided by Christie s. Evidence that the market knows pay, without artifice, which grows to the race, the masterpieces of…

4) Kasimir Malevich, Maketion suprematist , 1916

This painting was sold in may at Christie’s was for the connoisseurs. It was purchased by the gallery Lévy Gorvy for the account of a client. His award 85.8 million mark a new record for the Russian artist.

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5) Claude Monet, water Lilies in bloom , foot 1916

A $ 84.6 million, a record, the canvas was another jewel coveted of the collection to Rockefeller. The canvas painted in Giverny between 1914 and 1917, has eclipsed the last record set to 81.4 million by The Millstone , in November 2016, New York. Monet is the best value in the market impressionist.

In Hong Kong, «The Young Sophisticated Girl» (1932) by Constantin Brancusi was sold for $ 71 million. PHILIP FONG/AFP

6) Henri Matisse, Odalisque lying to magnolias , 1923

Part 80.7 million, this canvas with the pedigree of Rockefeller has smashed 46.4 million affected by The couscous blue carpet and rose , upon the sale of the collection Bergé, Yves Saint Laurent, under the hammer of Christie’s in 2009 at the Grand Palais. This dispersion which had reported 373,5 million euros had been qualified it is also the time of the «sale of the century». It was superseded by that of Rockefeller…

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7) Constantin Brancusi, The Young Sophisticated Girl (Portrait of Nancy Cunard) , 1932

In polished brass, this sculpture is iconic, designed in 1928 has reached $ 71 million, last may at Christie’s in Hong Kong. It was the subject of a guarantee by a third person. His pedigree, the collection of the american couple Elizabeth and Frederick Stafford who had bought the piece directly to the artist for $ 5,000 in 1995, explains this beautiful auction.

8) Pablo Picasso, The woman in the beret , 1937

Awarded $ 68.7 million in February at Sotheby’s London, The Woman in the beret and the dress grid depicting his muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, which had been bought directly to the estate of the artist and had never been put on the market for sale. The canvas would have been carried out at the end of the year 1937, the year during which Picasso gave birth to one of his masterpieces Guernica . In the same sale, another Picasso, The Sleeper , rose to 57.8 million dollars. The odds of Picasso is not weakened.

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9) Zao Wou-Ki, June – October 1985 , 1985.

This is the most beautiful surprise of the sales of Hong Kong. The huge array of Zao Wou-Ki, a triptych «abstract» ten meters long, has been sold for $ 65 million,a record for the artist, September 30, at Sotheby s., Entitled June-October 1985 , the composition had been commissioned personally by the architect Ieoh Ming Pei. The father of the Pyramid of the Louvre, also a native of China, was an admirer and friend of the artist who died in 2013. The work was «a perfect example of the fusion between eastern and western, as well as its philosophy,» says Vinci Chang, head of contemporary asian art in Sotheby’s . The buyer is surely an Asian.

10) Jean-Michel Basquiat Flexible , 1984.

Basquiat is part of the club very small, with Picasso, Modigliani, Bacon, Giacometti, Munch, and Warhol, to have crossed the fateful bar, and a psychological $ 100 million. He is the only artist born after 1945 to have reached such a level. The biggest prizes on the artist were made in 2017, just before the magisterial exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton which was exhibited his painting the most expensive one, acquired $ 110 million by the Japanese Yusaku Maezawa . This year has not seen major works out on the market, with the exception of this figure Flexible sold in Phillip’s, in may, in New York.