Sotheby’s will auction 12 paintings from the private Blaquier-Arrieta collection, which are expected to fetch a total of about $450 million. The sale will take place on November 18, 2026 in New York, and among the leading works are paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
The collection was assembled by Argentine collectors Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier and her husband Carlos Pedro Blaquier. A significant portion of the works have remained out of public view for decades, and two of the major paintings have not been shown in public for more than 50 years.
Van Gogh leads the auction with an estimate of $180 million
The highest preliminary estimate is for Van Gogh's "Chestnut Blossoms," painted in May 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise during the final months of the artist's life. Sotheby's expects the painting to fetch around $180 million, and the auction house says it could go even higher. If the prediction comes true, the work would beat the current Van Gogh auction record of $117 million, set in 2022.
“This is an extremely rare moment for the market because a Van Gogh painting from 1890 almost never comes up for auction,“ said Helena Newman, chairman of Sotheby’s European division.
Cézanne's “Harlequin“ is the other big highlight
Paul Cézanne's “Harlequin“ portrait is estimated at around $120 million. The painting is part of a series of works for which the artist's son Paul posed dressed as a harlequin. Three other versions are in major museum collections, and the appearance of this work at public auction is expected to attract strong interest.
Among the other more expensive works is Renoir's “In a Boat“, estimated at between $25 million and $35 million. The collection also includes paintings by Gauguin, Monet, Pissarro, Degas, Sisley, Toulouse-Lautrec, Derain and Vlaminck. The Gauguin work is a late still life created during his stay in Tahiti.
The collection will be shown before the sale
Seven of the 12 paintings were acquired in the 1970s by the Lefevre Gallery in London, when the Blaquier family regularly traveled to Europe and the United States in search of works by Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. "This doesn't look like a private collection, it looks like a small museum," said Simon Shaw, a senior adviser at Sotheby's.
Before the New York auction, the paintings will be shown in London, Taipei, Hong Kong and Paris. Sotheby's describes the sale as one of the most significant groups of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works to be offered from a private collection in recent years.
Source: The Art Newspaper