A $180 million Van Gogh tests the art market next week
A Van Gogh unseen in public for 50 years headlines New York's November auctions with a $180 million estimate, as Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips expect about $2.4 billion in sales.
A $180 million test
On Wednesday, a Vincent van Gogh painting that has not been seen in public for half a century goes on the block in New York, with Sotheby's expecting it to fetch around $180 million. The painting, Chestnut Trees in Flower, was made in 1890, in the last two months of the artist's life, and it headlines a week of evening sales at Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips that is expected to bring in about $2.4 billion, roughly matching last year's total. Sotheby's alone is expected to take in more than $1.1 billion.
The Van Gogh is not the only record on the line. The same sale offers a Paul Cézanne portrait, Arlequin, estimated at around $120 million, and the two works have sat in the same family collection since the 1970s. If both set new records for their artists, the night would mark only the second time the two records have fallen together, after Christie's sale of the Paul Allen collection in 2022.
The collection behind the two lots
The paintings come from the Blaquier-Arrieta collection, a group of 12 works that Sotheby's values at about $450 million and has called the El Dorado of private collections. The late Argentine businessman Carlos Pedro Blaquier and the art patron Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier assembled it over decades, buying much of it in London during summer trips, and their children are selling it after Nelly's death in 2020 and Carlos's in 2023. The chairman of Sotheby's Europe, Helena Newman, called it one of the greatest remaining collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art in private hands.
The Van Gogh was painted in Auvers-sur-Oise, the village where the artist spent his final weeks after a year in a psychiatric facility in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, and Sotheby's notes the energy and optimism of that late period. The Cézanne, painted in 1888–90, is one of four Harlequin portraits and the only one not held by a museum; it passed through the hands of leading French dealers before the Blaquier family bought it in 1975. The records they must beat are both from the Allen sale: $117 million for the Van Gogh landscape Verger avec cyprès and $137.7 million for Cézanne's La Montagne Sainte-Victoire.
What the market is saying
The week is a test of a market that has started to recover. Auction sales in the first half of 2026 rose 70% from a year earlier to $6.8 billion, according to Bank of America, with Impressionist and Modern art up 133%, after two years of declines in 2023 and 2024. Christie's star lot is a Wassily Kandinsky, Betonte Ecken, estimated at $60 million to $80 million, and the three houses together are offering works that span the top of the market.
The heads of the two biggest houses sound encouraged but careful. Sotheby's chief executive, Charles Stewart, said demand is strong for top-quality blue-chip works and that rising stock markets and private wealth are lifting collector confidence, with the recovery reaching Asia, the Middle East, Singapore, Europe and the United States. Christie's chief executive, Bonnie Brennan, described the market as confident but selective, and said swings in stocks and worries about an artificial-intelligence bubble are unlikely to put off serious collectors, who take a long-term view. Bank of America's Drew Watson said the outlook for November was hopeful but measured. On Wednesday night, the bids will show whether that confidence holds.
- $180 millionSotheby's estimate for the Van Gogh, Chestnut Trees in Flower
- $120 millionEstimate for the Cézanne portrait Arlequin
- $2.4 billionExpected total sales across the three houses next week
- $450 millionValue of the Blaquier-Arrieta collection
- $6.8 billionAuction sales in the first half of 2026, up 70% from a year earlier
