Confusion as Sotheby’s lops €3m off sale of ‘unseen’ Van Gogh after ‘bidding error’

A bidder clinched the sale at Sotheby's Paris of a previously unseen Van Gogh only to disappear after a 'bidding error'

Credit:  CHRISTIAN HARTMANN/Reuters

A previously unseen Van Gogh painting of Montmartre was sold for €16m at auction in Paris only to be “resold” minutes later for three million euros less due to a “bidding error”.

Street Scene in Montmartre, which has never before been exhibited since Van Gogh painted it in 1887, carried an estimate of €5-8m estimated price when the Sotheby’s auction opened on Thursday. It had been in the same private collection since 1920.

After a furious ten-minute bidding battle between a London and Hong Kong specialist, the price tag had reached €12m before an online buyer swooped in at the last minute, apparently securing the painting at €14 (€16.2m with taxes).

The painting was the highlight of an auction of 33 works from masters including Degas, Magritte, Modigliani, Klee, Rodin and his muse Camille Claudel sold in an auction live-streamed by Sotheby’s in Paris.

However, as the sale other works continued, Sotheby’s announced that there would be a resale of the Van Gogh due to a "bidding error". This time, the mystery third person was nowhere to be found and the work went to London specialist Samuel Valette for €13m, including tax.

Despite the drop, the sale price was a record for the artist in France, said Sotheby’s.

The 1887 Van Gogh, one of more than 200 paintings produced by the Dutch post-Impressionist master during two years spent in Paris, portrays one of the windmills that dotted Montmartre when it was just a village on the northern outskirts of the capital.

In brown tones, a couple stroll and two children play in front of a wooden fence and leafless trees while a bright red flag flies above the mill. It is not considered one of his best works.

The period marked a turning point in Van Gogh’s career after which he turned to greater use of colour in the final years of his life, before his suicide in 1890 at the age of 37.

The last Van Gogh sold at a public auction, Labourer in a Field from 1889, went for $81 million at a New York sale in 2017.

Nazi-looted work by Camille Pissarro, "La Recolte des pois", fetched €3.38m. 

Credit: Sotheby's

Other highlights in the Paris auction included the sale of a recently restored, Nazi-looted work by Camille Pissarro, La Recolte des pois, which fetched 3.38 million euros. It had been originally commissioned by Van Gogh’s brother, Theo.

Among other landmark works auctioned at the double sale of impressionist and modern art at Sotheby’s in Paris and London was a pastel by Edgar Degas called "Dancer" sold for €2.6 million.

In London, a portrait of the photographer Dora Maar by Pablo Picasso went for £9.3 million while Embrace on the beach by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch sold for £16.2m.

The painting was briefly owned by top Nazi official Hermann Goring, despite Munch’s official designation as a "degenerate" artist by the Third Reich.