Max Beckmann’s “Self-Portrait Yellow-Rose” was auctioned in Berlin on Thursday for a record price of 20 million euros. This is the highest so far…
The painting “Self-Portrait Yellow-Rose” by Max Beckmann is offered at the Villa Grisebach auction house.Britta Pedersen/dpa
Berlin–Max Beckmann’s “Self-Portrait Yellow-Rose” was auctioned in Berlin on Thursday for a record price of 20 million euros. This is the highest result ever for a work of art at an auction in Germany. The 1943 work by the painter and sculptor had previously been valued at 23 million euros by the Grisebach auction house.
The most expensive painting ever auctioned in Germany was also by Beckmann. In 2018, a price of 4.7 million euros was achieved for “Die Ägypterin”, also in Berlin.
The current auction started at 13 million and after three and a half minutes reached the highest bid for bidder number 469 in seven-digit increments. According to the auction house, the work was bought from a collection in Switzerland. There was no further information. 23.2 million euros are to be paid with the ancillary costs.
The self-portrait of Beckmann (1884-1950) comes from a Swiss private collection. The artist painted the work during his exile in Amsterdam, where he had emigrated after the Nazis came to power in Germany. In the painting itself, however, there are no direct references to the world situation at the time. Beckmann gave it to his wife Mathilde “Quappi” Kaulbach, who kept it until her death in 1986.
According to the information, the “Self-portrait yellow-pink” was one of the rare self-portraits that was still in private hands. Most recently, “Self-Portrait with Trumpet” was auctioned on the international market in 2001 for the equivalent of a good 23 million euros, and four years later “Self-Portrait with Glass Ball” for more than 17 million euros in New York.