Sotheby's has won the consignment of the late Emily Fisher Landau's art collection, valued at approximately $500 million, making it the most anticipated single-collector sale of the fall auction season in New York this November. The star lot is Pablo Picasso's 1932 portrait "Femme à la montre (Woman With a Watch)," estimated to fetch over $120 million, alongside major works by Mark Rothko, Ed Ruscha, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol.
The Landau sale arrives at a critical moment for the art market, which has been contracting after the disappointing Gerald Fineberg sale earlier this year. As a benchmark for high-end consignments, the auction's outcome will signal whether top-tier collections can still command record prices amid broader market uncertainty, making it a closely watched event for collectors, dealers, and institutions alike.