In the heart of New York auction week, the evening auction of Phillips dedicated to modern and contemporary art marked interesting results, with a clear recovery compared to 2024.
How does Phillips fit into the highlight week of New York auctions?
The sales week in New York showed a recovering market, driven by Christie’s and Sotheby’s. On Monday, Christie’s recorded a solid performance, while on Tuesday Sotheby’s captured attention with the sale of Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer by Gustav Klimt (1914–16) for 236.4 million dollars, setting multiple records and easing concerns about the market’s state.
On Wednesday, November 19, 2025, the evening at Phillips dedicated to modern and contemporary art appeared decidedly more measured.
However, even with a less spectacular pace compared to competitors, the auction house achieved a growing result and showed surprising strength in non-traditional segments, such as paleontological finds.
What are the key numbers of the Phillips evening sale?
The sale, compact with only 33 lots, totaled 67.3 million dollars. This is an increase of 24.4% compared to the 54.1 million recorded at the same auction in 2024. Moreover, the result falls within the high range of the pre-auction estimate, between 48.3 and 68.6 million dollars.
That said, the comparison with 2023 remains harsh: that year the total had reached 154.6 million dollars, also thanks to contributions from the Triton Collection Foundation. Overall, buyers judged the estimates reasonable, so much so that six of the top ten lots exceeded expectations, considering commissions.
The estimates, as usual, were expressed without rights, while the final prices included them.
How many lots remained unsold and which ones?
Only two lots did not find buyers, a figure that confirms a good overall resilience. One was an untitled painting from 2022 by the British Jadé Fadojutimi, among the fastest-rising names in the primary market. The work was estimated between 800,000 and 1.2 million dollars but did not reach the required threshold.
The other unsold item was “The Thunderbolt“, a gold nugget that Phillips had presented as “the longest gold nugget ever found”, weighing about eight pounds.
Moreover, despite the promotional emphasis, the natural ingot did not find a buyer on the estimate of 1.25–1.5 million dollars, proving that not everything that glitters convinces collectors.
What role did Phillips play in the market for young artists?
In recent years, Phillips has built a reputation as a preferred platform for record consecration of emerging artists. In this round, however, the speculative push appeared more contained, indicating a more cautious attitude from operators.
The only new artist record came for Firelei Báez, represented by Hauser & Wirth and fresh from a series of museum exhibitions. Her new maximum auction price is now 645,000 dollars.
Meanwhile, the audience in New York showed attention but without the euphoria of the hotter years of the contemporary market.
How did the leading Francis Bacon perform?
The most valuable lot was Study for Head of Isabel Rawsthorne and George Dyer (1967) by Francis Bacon, which reached 16 million dollars including rights, a central position compared to the estimate of 13–18 million. The work was consigned by Chinese businessman Zhang Chang.
However, for the seller, the outcome was penalizing. When he purchased the painting in 2015 from Christie’s in London, he paid 12.2 million pounds, equivalent then to 19.2 million dollars.
Adjusting the figure for pound inflation, the current cost would be around 17 million pounds, equivalent to about 22 million dollars, highlighting a substantial loss.
What other highlights marked the auction?
A sculpture by Max Ernst, Dans les rues d’Athènes (1960), previously owned by his fourth and last wife, artist Dorothea Tanning, was the surprise of the evening. Additionally, the work reached 1.5 million dollars, more than triple the low estimate of 400,000 dollars.
A strong rise also for an untitled painting by Joan Mitchell, which went from Christie’s in 2018 for 9.1 million dollars and now reached 14.3 million dollars.
In parallel, Ruth Asawa recorded two excellent results: a suspended lamp from the eighties was sold for 1.01 million dollars against a high estimate of 600,000 dollars, while another, made in the seventies, reached 900,000 dollars compared to a maximum estimate of 500,000 dollars.
What is the museum and gallery context for Mitchell and Asawa?
Both legacies are managed by the gallery David Zwirner, which currently presents a Mitchell exhibition in Chelsea and an Asawa retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. This dual institutional and commercial presence consolidates collectors’ interest, in line with the recent trend of favoring historically re-evaluated female artists.
Moreover, the auction results confirm the alignment between museum exposure, gallery programming, and secondary market demand, an element now crucial for building stable values.
Why did the triceratops Cera become the star of the evening?
The real curiosity of the sale was the inclusion, for the first time in a Phillips evening auction, of a highly appealing paleontological find: a young triceratops nicknamed Cera. Described as “the most complete juvenile triceratops skeleton ever found“, it was displayed in the gallery as a spectacular installation.
Consigned by an unidentified Swiss collector, the fossil reached 5.4 million dollars, against an estimate of 2.5–3.5 million. Overall, the result far exceeds expectations and indicates a strong appetite for naturalistic finds from collectors accustomed to dominating even the contemporary. After the 66-million-year-old fossil was sold, auctioneer Henry Highly joked: “And now, let’s move on to something a bit more contemporary.”
What other natural finds were sold?
Alongside the triceratops, a marine crocodile fossil, dating back about 180 million years and preserved in the form of an ouroboros, with the body arranged in a ring, almost evoking a contemporary art piece, was also offered. Additionally, this evocative prehistoric testimony was sold for 774,000 dollars, reinforcing the idea that the market for fossils and monumental skeletons is far from marginal.
Compared to traditional categories of painting and sculpture, these lots represent a diversification of the offer that attracts new segments of clientele, including natural history collectors and museums.
How was iconic contemporary art positioned in the catalog?
After the paleontological interlude, the catalog returned to the cornerstones of contemporary with Exercise (1984) by Jean-Michel Basquiat, created during a vacation in Hawaii. The work achieved 3.8 million dollars, fitting into a range consistent with the artist’s recent market, though without setting records.
Overall, the mix of post-war masters, historically re-evaluated female artists, and iconic presences like Basquiat helped consolidate the evening’s profile, even if without the disruptive effect seen in record auctions of other houses. Additionally, the bidding dynamics showed increasing selectivity from collectors, ready to compete only on lots considered truly of museum quality.
What was the atmosphere in the room and what does it suggest for the market?
At the end of the sale, many attendees rushed to take selfies with the triceratops Cera, effectively transformed into the star of the event. Immediately after, the audience headed to Christie’s for the evening auction dedicated to the 21st century, continuing a marathon of sales involving all the major auction houses.
Overall, the Phillips evening suggests a market in gradual stabilization, where certified masterpieces continue to perform well, while bettors on emerging names show greater caution. However, the growth of the total compared to 2024 and the excellent outcome of the more particular lots indicate that, albeit with some caution, buyers remain active and ready to venture into new grounds, from Bacon to dinosaurs.
As expert in digital marketing, Amelia began working in the fintech sector in 2014 after writing her thesis on Bitcoin technology. Previously author for several international crypto-related magazines and CMO at Eidoo. She is now the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Cryptonomist and Econique.
She is also a marketing teacher at Digital Coach in Milan and she published a book about NFTs for the Italian publishing house Mondadori, while she is also helping artists and company to entering in the sector. As advisor, Amelia is also involved in metaverse-related project such as The Nemesis and OVER.
