London

Sotheby’s takes the City by storm with the Lewis Collection

Exceptional results, exceeding pre-auction expectations, with £296.3 million raised from 25 lots offered, with just one lot unsold

by Giovanni Gasparini

25 June 2026

5' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

Portraits of female multi-millionaires
Picasso
Male portraits: Caillebotte, Magritte and Bacon

5' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

It took two hours – twice as long as expected – to sell the 25 most valuable lots (all with estimates in the millions) from the Lewis collection, at auction at Sotheby’s on the evening of 24 June in London, forcing the subsequent catalogue of different lots to start with a significant delay.

There are two reasons for this: on the one hand, the high level of participation, which saw half the lots exceed the high estimates even before commissions were added; on the other hand, the activity of many buyers participating by telephone – particularly from Asia – with bids that were often in small increments and long waiting times; in fact, a quarter of the lots were sold to buyers in Asia, accounting for a third of the total value.

I capolavori milionari di Lewis in asta a Londra
Photogallery25 foto

The overall result is particularly significant for London, as it represents the highest total achieved for a collection at this auction house, ten years on from Brexit: £296.3 million, exceeding the pre-auction estimates of £190.2–273.6 million, with just one lot remaining unsold.

The collection, which was not covered by third-party insurance, comes from one of the country’s wealthiest families: the 89-year-old billionaire Joe Lewis, known for his financial speculation and football clubs, and his 60-year-old daughter Vivienne.

Four works from the collection had already been successfully sold in March at Sotheby’s London. Around half of the lots had been purchased at auction between 2013 and 2020, indicative of a very late start to a ‘signature’ collecting approach spread across various areas and characterised by a strong preference for portraiture. Other works, however, had been shrewdly acquired in the 1990s, including three pieces that fetched over 20 million pounds for two nudes by Freud and Modigliani respectively.

Nine of the ten top results exceeded 10 million pounds, confirming the strength of the high-end market for major figures in historicised art, from the second half of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century.

Portraits of female multi-millionaires

Six of the top seven results were achieved by large canvases depicting noble and common women, led by a nude by Modigliani painted during the prolific months he spent in the South of France before the illness that would lead to his untimely death. The nude of a young woman returned to auction after 30 years with an on-request estimate of 45 million pounds, which rose to 48.2 million only after the addition of commissions following a single bid.
Greater interest was shown in a second work by the Livorno-born artist, also from the same period, but this time a portrait of a man with a pipe known as ‘The Notary of Nice’, which exceeded its high estimate of 18 million and was contested up to 23.3 million pounds including commissions.
The recent publication of the artist’s new catalogue raisonné has given new impetus to this market, with several works also recently offered at Art Basel.

The portrait of a society lady in elegant dress by Gertrud Loew, painted by Klimt in 1902, was driven by a flurry of bids beyond the estimate of 20–30 million to 36.2 million pounds including commissions, eventually finding a buyer in Asia alongside the two works by Modigliani. The other great name from the early 20th-century Viennese art scene, Egon Schiele, was also featured, with a sensual ‘Danae’ which, despite the slow pace of bidding, came close to the upper estimate at 17.9 million pounds including commission.

We return to the nude – the one with the large, heavy, sleepy body of Sue Tilley, portrayed (on four occasions) by Lucian Freud in 1996, which had remained in the Lewis collection for 30 years and confirmed the low estimate of 25 million, equivalent to 29.3 million pounds including commissions, whilst a second, clothed female portrait by the master of English painting came close to the high estimate at 3.9 million before commissions.

The only sculpture in the catalogue, one of just 27 rare bronze versions of Degas’s ‘Little 14-Year-Old Dancer’, reached the high estimate of 25 million pounds, thanks to commissions on the 21.4 million hammer price; It had been purchased at auction in 2015 for 15.8 million sterine.

Picasso

The only artist with more than two works in the catalogue is Picasso, with five lots all bidding warred over until they exceeded their respective upper estimates, led by a dramatic 1938 portrait of Dora Maar, which had remained in the collection for 30 years and was hotly contested, reaching nearly 24 million, double the low estimate of 12–18 million pounds – a significant price for a work on paper, whilst a pastel ‘Tête de Femme’ from his classical period in 1921 tripled its high estimate, reaching 6.2 million pounds.
All the Picassos were from before the Second World War, starting with the fine portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto, which dates back as far as 1899 and was sold for 3.8 million pounds against an estimate of 1.5–2 million.

Portraits of Men: Caillebotte, Magritte and Bacon

This early portrait by Picasso is not the only male portrait to have been well received: the first lot in the auction, a 19th-century full-length portrait by Caillebotte depicting his friend Paul Hugot in a typically elegant outfit with a top hat and walking stick, painted in 1878, sparked a long series of bids that lasted for around ten minutes, reaching 10.3 million pounds from an estimate of 3.5–4.5 million, closely followed by another man wearing a hat, this time wearing a bowler hat typical of the enigmatic figures of Magritte, an image so rare and sought-after that it drove ‘La Belle promenade’ up to 16 million pounds, four times the upper estimate – a record price for a gouache on paper by the great Surrealist.

The auction would not have been complete without works by the other great post-war English portrait painter, Francis Bacon, with two self-portrait studies which, however, struggled to reach the low estimate of 8.7 million pounds – including commission – after a single bid of 7.1 million from an estimate of 8–12 million pounds, whilst a second portrait study, a single panel, confirmed the estimate at 4.4 million including commission.
Both works were returning to auction from 2015 and 2017 respectively, whilst the Caillebotte work had remained in the collection for three decades. The two works by Beckmann in the catalogue also exceeded their high estimates.
On 25 June, Sotheby’s daily catalogue includes further works from the Lewis collection.