Christie’s has secured the consignment of Painted Wood (1943), a rare wooden mobile by Alexander Calder, which will lead its 20th Century Evening Sale next month. Specialists estimate the work will sell for between $15 million and $20 million, the highest auction estimate ever placed on a Calder piece. The mobile comes from the collection of prominent Latin American art collector Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and was featured in Calder’s landmark 1943 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he became the youngest artist to receive a solo exhibition at the museum.
The sale is significant because it tests the market for Calder’s early wooden mobiles, a rare category, and could set a new auction record for the artist if it surpasses the current $25.93 million record set in 2014. The work’s prestigious provenance—from a major collector and a historic MoMA show—adds to its importance. The auction also coincides with heightened institutional attention on Calder, including the opening of Calder Gardens in Philadelphia and a centennial exhibition of Calder’s Circus at the Whitney Museum of American Art.