On Thursday night, Sotheby’s concluded a week of evening sales with a three-part modern art auction that achieved $304.6 million, far exceeding its pre-sale estimate of $211.3–$289.3 million. The evening featured 13 works from the collection of Cindy and Jay Pritzker, which sold for $109.5 million, followed by the 'Exquisite Corpus' Surrealist sale from Selma Ertegun’s collection totaling $98 million, and a multiple-owner modern art auction that brought in $97 million. The standout was Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait *El sueño (La cama)* (1940), which sold for $55 million, setting records for Kahlo, a Latin American artist, and a female artist at auction. Vincent van Gogh’s *Piles de romans parisiens et roses dans une verre (Romans parisiens)* (1887) achieved $62.7 million after a seven-minute bidding war.
The sale matters because it underscores the enduring strength of the high-end art market, with major collections achieving strong results and record prices for underrepresented artists. Kahlo’s record highlights growing demand for works by women and Latin American artists, while the Pritzker and Ertegun collections demonstrate the premium placed on provenance and curated taste. However, the uneven results in the final modern art portion—with several works selling below estimates—suggest a more cautious market for less iconic pieces, reflecting selective buyer appetite even in a buoyant auction environment.