Art News: The $450 Million Blaquier-Arrieta Collection Leads the November Auctions in New York

A private collection that has hardly been seen in decades leads the November auctions in New York. On 18 November Sotheby's in New York offers Legendary: The Blaquier-Arrieta Collection, twelve Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings put together by the Argentine collectors Carlos Pedro Blaquier and Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier, and estimated at around $450 million (about £338 million) in all. They began collecting in the 1960s and bought most of these pictures in London in the 1970s, several of them from the Lefevre Gallery on Bruton Street.

The Van Gogh

The lead lot is Vincent van Gogh's Châtaigniers en fleurs (Chestnut Trees in Blossom), painted within days of his arrival in Auvers-sur-Oise in May 1890. Sotheby's gives the estimate on request, and reports put it at about $180 million. The auction record for Van Gogh is $117.2 million, for Verger avec cyprès at Christie's in New York in 2022.

Vincent van Gogh, Châtaigniers en fleurs, Auvers-sur-Oise, May 1890, in the sale. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Its owners have included the artist's brother Theo and his widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, the Berlin publisher Samuel Fischer, and the songwriter Buddy DeSylva, a co-founder of Capitol Records. The Blaquiers bought it from Wildenstein in 1975, and it has not been on public view since.

The Cézanne

Paul Cézanne's Arlequin, painted in 1888–90 with his teenage son Paul as the model, is one of four Harlequins he made and the only one still in private hands. It passed through the dealers Ambroise Vollard, Durand-Ruel and Paul Rosenberg, and hung for about twenty years at Merton Hall in Cambridge, the house of the Rothschild family, before the Blaquiers bought it through Lefevre. It has not been exhibited since 1975. Its estimate is also on request; reports put it at about $120 million, against a Cézanne record of $137.8 million, set in 2022.

Paul Cézanne, Harlequin, 1888–90, one of his other Harlequins, in the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Public domain (CC0), via Wikimedia Commons.

The rest of the collection

Renoir's En Canot (Jeune fille à la barque), of 1877, on our cover, shows Marguerite Legrand in a boat and is estimated at $25 million to $35 million. Pissarro's La Place du Théâtre-Français et l'avenue de l'Opéra, soleil d'après-midi en hiver, from the Paris views of 1898, is estimated at $30 million to $40 million and has not been seen in public since 1958.

Edgar Degas's pastel Avant la course is estimated at $20 million to $30 million, and Claude Monet's Le Jardin des Tuileries at $15 million to $20 million; Monet painted it in 1876, one of four views from an apartment lent to him by the collector Victor Chocquet. A late Tahitian still life by Paul Gauguin, Fleurs dans une coupe, is estimated at $10 million to $15 million, and André Derain's Bateaux au port de Collioure, from the summer of 1905 he spent painting with Matisse, at $8 million to $12 million. Works by Sisley, Vlaminck and Toulouse-Lautrec and a second Pissarro make up the twelve.

The rest of the week

The works are on view at Sotheby's new headquarters, the Breuer building at 945 Madison Avenue, from 7 to 17 November. Its evening sales open on 16 November with The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction, led by Roy Lichtenstein's Reflections on "Painter and Model" at $20 million to $30 million, with a Francis Bacon self-portrait and a Yayoi Kusama at $10 million to $15 million each.

945 Madison Avenue, Sotheby's New York headquarters, August 2026. Photo: Ajay Suresh, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Modern Evening Auction follows the Blaquier sale on 18 November, with Paul Signac's Collioure. Les Balancelles (Opus 167) at $12 million to $18 million, a Degas of three dancers at $10 million to $15 million and Mary Cassatt's Summertime at $7 million to $10 million. Christie's has its own week of sales in New York, which include more than $40 million of works from the collection of the American businessman Bill Koch, led by paintings by Monet and Cézanne.

What it means for sellers

Much of what is being sold here is history: Theo van Gogh, the Rothschilds, the Lefevre Gallery and fifty years out of sight. The same applies at every level of the market. A dealer's invoice, a label on the back of the frame or an old exhibition catalogue can matter as much as the picture's condition, and strong results for fresh, well-documented Impressionist pictures tend to bring more of them to auction the following season.

If you own an Impressionist or modern work and are thinking of selling, send us photographs for a free valuation. There is no obligation to sell, and we act for you rather than for the saleroom.

Cover: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, En Canot (Jeune fille à la barque), 1877, in the sale. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.