Picasso Leads $3.3M Print Auction at Swann

Joan Miro Rembrandt van Rijn Georges Rouault Jewelry, Painting & Sculpture Lovely Bones French Translation Art for Rent at UC Berkeley Fall Forecast

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Swann Galleries closed out its fall auction of Old Master to Modern prints with a hammer total of approximately $3.3 million. More than 689 lots were offered, of which 570 sold during the Oct. 31 event.

The highest bid came in the evening session, when Pablo Picasso’s 1904 drypoint, Le Repas Frugal, sold to a private collector for $132,000—just over its pre-sale estimate of $80,000-120,000. According to the auction house, the print is an early example of the artist’s work and is extremely rare.

Several other prints in the sale garnered record prices for the individual works, including Joan Miro’s nine-piece portfolio Oda a Joan Miro (1973), which went for $96,000; Stuart Davis’ Sixth Avenue El lithograph (1931), sold for $52,800; and a rare Rembrandt etching, Self Portrait Open Mouthed, as if Shouting: Bust (1630), bought for $50,400.

In each session of the sale, Rembrandts appeared to be the most popular works: four the 10 top lots belonged to the artist. In addition to Self Portrait, his 1641 drypoint and etching Windmill sold for $84,000; Landscape with a Cottage and Haybarn (1641) went for $52,000; and Christ before Pilate: large Plate (1656) sold for $43,200.

Rounding out the top 10 were Toulouse-Lautrec’s Partie de Campagne (1897), for $57,600, and Femme au Tub (1896), for $50,400; and Georges Rouault’s Cirque de L’Etoile Filante, for $48,000.

Todd Weyman, vice president and director of prints and drawings at Swann said that bidding was spirited at the auction, largely as a result of “diverse material by a myriad of important, well-known printmakers.”

The sales total for the auction, including buyers’ premiums, was $3.95 million, just shy of the auction house’s record of $4 million, a Swann representative said.