A Second Look at Bacon's Triptych

As Figure Painting noted yesterday, Francis Bacon's Triptych 1974-77 set a record for a post-war work of art sold in Europe when it fetched $51.7 million (that price includes buyer's premium) at Christie's in London on Wednesday evening. (It is also the most expensive piece of art to ever be knocked off the block at the auction house's King Street headquarters.) Despite these honorifics, Triptych seems to have failed to live up to expectations. According to the New York Times' Carol Vogel, not only did the painting not achieve a worldwide record price for the artist's work, as was anticipated, but also the hammer price for the piece ($46.1 million) fell short of its $50 million - $70 million estimate. (The estimate was not publicized by Christie's but acquired and published by Vogel.) So was the lot a boom or a bust? Prior to the sale, Christie's described it as "the most important triptych by Francis Bacon to appear ever at auction." If that's true, the "young man with long hair who was carrying a leather jacket and spoke English" may have gotten a good deal.

Watch Jussi Pylkkänen (President of Christie's Europe, Chairman of the Impressionist and Modern Art Department, and auctioneer for the evening) sell Bacon's Triptych 1974-77 here.