Paris, 12 December 2014
<img src="https://ak-articles.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com/_/600/Ieqb9a3T-lg.jpg" alt=“Oceanic and African art sale at Sotheby’s Paris realises €12 million" />
On 10 December 2014 Sotheby’s Paris realised €12 million in sales of Oceanic and African art including the sale of the Alexis Bonew collection which brought in €6.2 million of the day’s turnover.
This, the last sale of the year for the African and Oceanic arts department, realised almost half of the department’s total sales for the year — €26 million, a record for the auction house. The large majority of the Alexis Bonew collection was acquired, including a muminia Lega mask, realising €3,569,500, the second highest price ever realised for an African mask, whilst the Nkonde statue almost doubled its high estimate of €800,000, bringing in a total of €1,553,500.
The second sale of the day featured various amateur works from Oceania and the African continent, with the record for the most expensive work from Easter Island being broken during the sale. The piece in question is a Rapa, an abstraction of the human form, which realised €1,889,500, far surpassing its high estimate of €400,000.