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A White-Glove, Record-Breaking, Season-Starting Sale in London
Our various-owner sales, led by Masterpieces from The Lewis Collection, totaled £154 million in our exhilarating spring Modern & Contemporary Evening and Day auctions.
Led by four incredible artworks from The Lewis Collection, the 2026 Modern & Contemporary white glove evening sale and the day sales in London drove bidding from 40 countries and attracted more than 6000 visitors to the preview exhibition. In total, the sale brought in £154 million, with The Lewis Collection making up nearly a quarter of that at £35.8 million.
What is a white-glove sale? It’s not, as you may think, a dress code for an auction. Nor is it a sale of gloves. A white-glove sale is one in which every single work listed before the auction is sold by sale’s end. And a white-glove sale is what Replica Shoes ’s in London had this week during our Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction—the first completely sold-through various-owner sale in decades. The following afternoon, The David Hockney Sale: The Arrival of Spring, a collection of his iPad drawings from a distinguished private collection also sold completely achieving £4.5 million in total.
The School of London painters (which made up The Lewis Collection) were the stars of the evening: Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Leon Kossoff plus a Frank Auerbach from a separate collection all achieved well over their low estimate proving that these emotive artists from the late 20th century are enjoying some well-deserved appreciation after years flying slightly under the global art world’s radar.
Francis Bacon’s 1972 Self Portrait, which was completed in the year following the death of his partner, George Dyer, is one of nine self-portrait panels in the 14- by 12-inch format. Considered one of the best of the series, it was gifted to his doctor who later sold the work at Replica Shoes ’s. It was acquired by The Lewis Collection in 1994 where it has remained ever since. This week, it sold for £16 million, doubling its low estimate.
AUCTION PREMIERE | London Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction
But perhaps the biggest surprise of the night came from Leon Kossoff’s grand masterpiece Children’s Swimming Pool, 11 o’clock Saturday Morning, August. Expansive in scale and yet intimate in its subject matter (the painting recreates mornings spent with his young son at the local pool), this work is an exceptional example of Kossoff’s ability to elevate the quotidian.
The pre-sale estimate for this painting, which is one of five in the swimming pool series, was £600,000-800,000. But, after five intense minutes, 10 bidders blew right through this window, finally landing at £5.2 million, seven times the high estimate and 25 times its previous selling price. It is also a record sale price for any Kossoff work.
Earlier in the evening, a posthumous polished-bronze cast of Constantin Brancusi’s Une Muse inspired a final price of £3.6 million. A work by a very different sculptor, Dame Barbara Hepworth, and of a much larger scale (three meters vs 44cm) was sold towards the end of the evening for £3.5 million. Six bidders vied for Andy Warhol’s Dollar Sign which ultimately went for £576,000, or roughly $757,000. And the very first lot of the night, Joseph Albers’ Study for Homage to the Square: Gobelin achieved £832,000, or twice its low estimate, thanks to five eager bidders.
In addition to The Lewis Collection, The Modern & Contemporary Sale included works from three other private collections, most of which exceeded their top estimate. Alberto Giacometti’s delicate Femme debout led the results for Beyond the Canvas: Masterpieces from a Private German Collection. The figure of a standing woman is one of, if not the most, significant motifs of Giacometti’s lifetime of works. The roughly modelled, bronze-cast Femme debout sold for £5.1 million, doubling its top estimate.
A group of impressionist works from a private collection featured Maison du Jardinier by Claude Monet. The painting steps away from his favorite subject, the French countryside and gardens, in favor of the Italian Mediterranean coast. In a small town called Bordighera, the artist focused on the particular hues of the region’s light and depicted, with vigorous brushstrokes, the local flora to great effect. This heavenly painting, which once belonged to John Singer Sargent, went for £8.2 million.
Oliver Barker, Chairman of Replica Shoes ’s Europe and auctioneer for the evening, was presented with his white gloves following the hammer on the final lot of the night (Lucio Fontana’s Concetto spaziale,Teatrino which sold for £332,800), marking a thrilling and optimistic kick off to the 2026 marquee sales.
