Sotheby’s inaugural auction in Saudi Arabia—and the country’s first major international art and luxury auction—took place in Diriyah on Saturday (8 February) with works by regional artists selling particularly well.
Sotheby’s reported a full house for the “Origins” sale, which was held in an 250-seat outdoor amphitheatre and featured participants from 45 countries. The sale totalled $17.28m with a sell-through rate of 67% by lot and 74% by value. Almost a third of the buyers were from Saudi Arabia.
The auction offered an eclectic mix of around 120 objects. Approximately half were works of art and a quarter watches and jewellery, while there were also 17 designer handbags and several items of sports memorabilia.
“Prior to the evening, nearly everyone believed the luxury segment would outperform the art on offer. To everyone's surprise fine art achieved very solid results, indicating a strong appetite for Saudi and Arab art,” says Rebecca Anne Proctor, the author of the book Art in Saudi Arabia: A New Creative Economy? (Lund Humphries, 2023), who attended the sale.
“While there were some beautiful pieces from the luxury segment, the sales were astonishingly few for a market that so prizes luxury.”
While three works—by René Magritte, Fernando Botero and Banksy—sold for more than $1m, they were within estimate. The strongest sales were of Arab art, with two artist records set: $900,000 for Then What?? (1965) by the Syrian artist Louay Kayyali and $264,000 for the Saudi Arabian artist Abdulhalim Radwi’s Untitled (1984).
Louay Kayyali’s Then What?? (1965) set a record for the Syrian artist’s work
Courtesy Sotheby’s
All four works by Saudi Arabian artists in the auction sold for above estimate and Samia Halaby’s Blue Trap (in a Railroad Station) (1977) realised $384,000, almost double its high estimate.
“The results that we have achieved here during our inaugural sale is a clear signal of the depth of appetite that exists for art, and the thirst that is ready to be unlocked, of which tonight was a successful next step," said Ashkan Baghestani, a Sotheby’s head of sale for fine art, in a statement.