Rockefeller auction fetches £476m on first night as historic art works sell for record prices

Pablo Picasso's 'Young Girl with a Flower Basket' fetches £85m alone

‘Odalisque couchée aux magnolias’ (1923) by Henri Matisse sold for $81m (EPA)

An auction of artwork belonging to late billionaire David Rockefeller has fetched an unprecedented $646m (£476m) on its first night.

Tuesday evening’s sale smashed the $484m auction in 2009 of works collected by fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent.

Highlights of the sale at Christie’s included Young Girl with a Flower Basket, a 1905 painting by Pablo Picasso, which went for $115m, the second highest price at auction for the artist.

Paintings by Claude Monet and Henri Matisse also sold at record prices for the artists. Monet’s Water Lilies in Bloom, completed between 1914 and 1917, sold for a record $84.6m and Matisse’s Odalisque reclining with magnolias sold for a record $80.7m (£59m).

Christie’s said the proceeds would be distributed to a number of causes Rockefeller and his wife, Peggy, supported in their lifetimes.

Rockefeller was the last surviving grandson of Standard Oil founder John D Rockefeller when he died in March 2017 at the age of 101.

He and Peggy had been married for more than 50 years when she died in 1996.

Pablo Picasso’s 1905 painting ‘Young Girl with a Flower Basket’ in the library of the Manhattan townhouse that was the residence of David and Peggy Rockefeller (AP) (Reuters)

The couple amassed a vast collection of art, furniture, ceramics, statuary and decor. The collection also includes items that were passed down from previous Rockefeller generations.

Tuesday’s sale focused on 19th- and 20th-century art, and also included works from Paul Gauguin and Georges Seurat.

Art of the Americas will go on the block on Wednesday night. It includes works from Willem de Kooning, Edward Hopper and John Singer Sargent.

Other sale sessions at Christie’s will focus on furniture, ceramics and decorations, while an online auction will offer personal mementos, lamps and lighting and tableware.

Among the high profile items is a porcelain dessert service that Napoleon took with him into exile.

Additional reporting by AP