New York’s major auction houses are heading into the November marquee sales next week with a sustained sense of confidence, as the global art market continues to show signs of recovery and amid a set of significant single-owner collections being consigned. Sotheby's, Christie's, Phillips and Bonhams expect to bring in at least $2.04bn collectively from their auctions in the Big Apple this month, with sales potentially exceeding $2.4bn, slightly above last year’s estimates for the period.
The confident estimates for this month’s top lots—and strong results for New York’s May sales—resonate with an ArtTactic report released earlier this year, which found the top auction houses made strong recoveries during the first half of 2026. Global auction sales were up 70% year-on-year at Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips in the first six months of the year, thanks in part to the enduring appeal of single-owner collections and major estates.
That consignment strategy will be on full display at New York’s blockbuster auctions next week. Single-owner collections allow the houses to rebrand regular seasonal auctions as can’t-miss, once-in-a-lifetime events, and craft marketing campaigns around not just the works on sale but also the legacies of the collectors.
Van Gogh’s Blossoming Chestnut Trees (Châtaigniers en fleurs) (1890) Courtesy Sotheby's
Sotheby’s boasts the highest collective estimate of the auction houses, projecting it will bring in more than $1.1bn, a record for the house for a marquee sale season. Around 40% of that total is attributed to the Blaquier-Arrieta collection, a fully-guaranteed group of 12 Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Fauvist paintings expected to sell in the region of $450m, making it the highest-value single-owner collection on offer this season across the city. The collection was assembled by the Argentine sugar magnate Carlos Pedro Blaquier and his wife, María Elena “Nelly” Arrieta de Blaquier. Blaquier faced charges relating to the kidnapping of suspected left-wing activists during Argentina's military dictatorship. He denied the allegations and died in 2023 without standing trial. The 12 paintings are being consigned by the couple’s five children; the auction on 18 November will immediately be followed by Sotheby’s multiple-owner evening sale of Modern art.
“The market is very much moved by these collections,” says Allegra Bettini, Sotheby’s head of Modern evening auction. “Collectors today like to understand a narrative and see where works are coming from to understand the taste of how they all hung together.”
When the works in the Blaquier-Arrieta hoard were acquired, mostly in the 1960s and 70s in Europe, it was a time when collectors could still purchase museum-quality works by Modern masters from commercial art galleries. That is no longer the case, Sotheby’s specialists say, even with a seven-figure budget. The Blaquier-Arrieta family rarely, if ever, loaned works for public display. Until Sotheby’s put them on view in its galleries at the Breuer Building on the Upper East Side, few of the 12 consigned works had been on public exhibit or offered on the market in decades.
The headline lot from the Blaquier-Arrieta trove is Vincent van Gogh’s Blossoming Chestnut Trees (1890), one of the final works the artist painted in Auvers-sur-Oise in the months before his death. It carries a staggering estimate of around $180m and, because it has been guaranteed, is sure to exceed the current auction record for a Van Gogh of $117m (including fees), set by Orchard with Cypresses (1888) at the Paul Allen sale at Christie’s New York in 2022.
“It’s hard to not want to just touch and feel these brushstrokes because it is so alive,” Bettini says, gesturing to the leaves of the trees in the painting. “There's an intensity to it that really brings us into this landscape with the artist.”
Paul Cezanne's Arlequin (1888–90) Courtesy Sotheby's
Another possible recordbreaker is Arlequin (1888–90) by Paul Cezanne, which is estimated to sell in the region of $120m. The late harlequin painting is the only example from Cezanne’s series still in private hands, according to Sotheby’s. (The current auction record for a Cezanne work, also set during the Paul Allen sales at Christie’s, is $137.79m.)
Other standout works from the Blaquier-Arrieta collection include paintings by Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Sotheby’s will also offer works from the collections of oil tycoon Armand Hammer, Seattle property developer Richard Hedreen and his wife Elizabeth Hedreen, and cable television pioneer Theodore Baum and his wife Ruth Baum.
In Midtown at Christie’s, the leading lot of the season is Wassily Kandinsky's Betonte Ecken (1922-23), from the artist’s Bauhaus period. Once part of the Guggenheim collection, it was purchased by its current owners—reportedly the billionaire, art-dealing Nahmad family—at Sotheby’s in 1986. It is estimated to sell for between $60m and $80m during the 20th Century evening sale on 17 November.
With the same estimate and on offer during the same sale, Gustav Klimt’s landscape Litzlbergkeller (1915-16) was once part of the collection gathered by Serge Sabarsky, the late art dealer who co-founded the Neue Galerie in New York (the beloved Austrian restaurant on the museum’s ground floor is named for him). Leading the 21st century evening sale is an untitled 1983 work by Jean-Michel Basquiat that references a drawing on paper by Leonardo da Vinci and is estimated to sell for between $30m and $50m.
Wassily Kandinsky's Das bunte Leben (1907) Courtesy Christie's
Christie’s is also offering a wide variety of works from the holdings of well-known collectors, among them the music executive Clive Davis, the billionaire businessman William Koch, and more works belonging to the late Museum of Modern Art trustee Agnes Gund that will benefit her foundation. Also on offer is a group of seven works including Old Master, Modernist and post-war artists understood to have been consigned by Jeff Koons. Altogether, the auction house expects to take in between $823m and $1.1bn during its November sales in New York.
Despite recent stock market volatility following the “blue tsunami” during the US midterm elections earlier this month and concerns over a Democrat-controlled Congress’s regulation of artificial intelligence and data centre development—heightened by recent revelations about chipmaker Nvidia’s president Jensen Huang being embroiled in a spy scandal—stocks show early signs of stabilising. Christie's specialists are similarly optimistic ahead of the November auctions.
While fluctuations in the stock markets can influence the art market over the longer term, the immediate impact on high-end auctions tends to be limited. Particularly for evening auctions, where lots are estimated to sell for seven-, eight- and nine-figure sums, potential buyers are often wealthy enough to be insulated from the day-to-day fluctuations of the stock market.
“The art's quality is going to supersede any day in the market. People aren’t day-trading Picassos,” says Kat Widing, Christie's senior vice president, senior specialist in post-war and contemporary art, and head of the 21st century evening sale.
Collectors are “looking at these works over months, and they're thinking through these major purchases”, she adds. “These would be additions to major collections that are quite significant. With those two things in mind, I’m still very optimistic.”
Constantin Brancusi bronzes up for auction this month at Bonhams Courtesy Bonhams
Phillips expects to bring in between $80.4m and 128.7m in New York this month, with its auctions led by Amedeo Modigliani’s limestone sculpture Tête (1911-12), estimated to sell for between $28m and $35m after having been in the same private collection for more than 50 years.
Bonhams estimates it will sell at least $40m worth of art in November in New York, with most of that total coming from a collection of five fresh Constantin Brancusi bronzes that were held in the same private collection for decades after being acquired from the artist’s estate. Collectively, they are expected to fetch $25m.
