Classic Week in New York closed on 1 February with a total of $92,434,360 across 10 live and online auctions.

The Old Masters category topped over $76 million in sales, reflecting its renewed strength. Selling in the Old Masters sale on 25 January, the top lot of the sale series was a pairing of Francisco Goya’s Portrait of Doña María Vicenta Barruso Valdés and Portrait of her mother Doña Leonora Antonia Valdés de Barruso, which fetched $16,420,000, smashing the previous record for the artist. 

Remastered: Old Masters from the Collection of J.E. Safra was 100% sold, showing the power of the no-reserve strategy, with more than one in five lots achieving at least 150% of their low estimates. Modern Medici: Masterpieces from a New York Collection followed with a total of over $9.5 million, selling 98% by low estimate and 96% by lot.

Featuring the ancient art of the Mediterranean and Near East, the Antiquities sale brought in a fresh audience, with more than 15% of buyers and bidders new to the category at Christie’s.

In the Printed and Manuscript Americana & Science online auction, the thrilling letter by Nobel Prize winner Maurice Wilkinson on the discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure realised $327,600, over four times its low estimate.

Wrapping up the live auctions, the Exceptional Sale, spanning multiple categories of the applied and decorative arts, was led by a commemorative marker of the first Transcontinental Railroad, ‘The Arizona Spike’, which realised $2.2 million, soaring past its low estimate of $300,000.