Phillips New York is offering Roy Lichtenstein's 1994 painting *Nudes in Mirror* with a $20 million estimate this fall, despite—or perhaps because of—its history of vandalism. The work, from the Rush Family Collection, was slashed by a mentally unstable woman while on loan to the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria in 2005, leaving four 12-inch gashes that have since been expertly restored. Phillips is openly embracing the attack as part of the painting's mythology, detailing the incident in its catalogue and comparing it to other famous acts of art vandalism.
This sale tests whether a damaged-and-restored masterpiece can command top market prices, especially when the damage is framed as a compelling narrative rather than a flaw. With comparable Lichtenstein nudes selling for over $30 million and the artist's auction record at $95.4 million, the auction house is betting that transparency about the work's violent history will intrigue rather than deter buyers. The outcome could influence how the market values artworks with documented trauma, potentially setting a precedent for handling similar cases.