Fine art in 2026 so far, from Christie’s £197.4m March to a £296.3m collection sale

The top of the art market recovered in the first nine months of 2026: on 5 March Christie’s London took £197.4m with fees across three evening sales, 52 per cent more than a year earlier, and on 24 June Sotheby’s sold a single-owner collection in London for £296.3m with fees, the most valuable ever sold in the UK.

On 16 January, a temporary export bar was placed on Claude Lorrain’s ‘Landscape with Rural Dance’, valued at £9m, according to the government.

On 5 March, Christie’s London took £197.4m with fees across three evening sales, 52 per cent more than the equivalent sales a year earlier, according to The Art Newspaper. Henry Moore’s ‘King and Queen’ was hammered at £22.5m against a £10m to £15m estimate and made £26.3m with fees, a new auction record for the sculptor. Works fresh to market led the sales.

On 12 March, a market report estimated 2025 at US$59.6bn, up 4 per cent, a rise it said was largely driven by high-end sales.

On 1 April, Raja Ravi Varma’s ‘Yashoda and Krishna’ (1890s) was hammered at US$15m at Saffronart in Mumbai. It made US$17.9m with fees, an auction record for a South Asian painting, beating M.F. Husain’s ‘Gram Yatra’, which made US$13.7m with fees at Christie’s New York in March 2025.

On 19 May, Phillips’ New York evening sale sold every lot offered, making US$115.2m with fees (US$91.73m hammer), 107.5 per cent more than the equivalent sale a year earlier. Guarantees backed 21 of the 41 lots offered. The top lot fell short of its US$15m to US$20m estimate, with a winning bid of US$13.5m (US$16.2m with fees).

On 4 June, a Georg Kolbe fountain sold for €4m at Villa Grisebach in Berlin, a record for a Kolbe statue. The previous record was €1.4m, set at the same house the year before. The fountain had been restituted to the descendants of its commissioner, 85 years after it was looted by the Nazis.

On 24 June, Sotheby’s sold works from a single-owner collection in London for £296.3m with fees, a hammer total of £249.3m against an estimate of £150m to £200m (estimates exclude fees). The total nearly tripled the previous British record for one collection, £101m. A sale scheduled for one hour ran to nearly two.

On 13 July, the government published a policy paper on the Cultural Gift Scheme, under which donors of objects to the nation receive a tax credit. From 6 April 2027, joint owners can each claim relief on their share of an object. Individuals receive a credit of 30 per cent of the value of the item donated, and the scheme shares a £40m annual budget with the Acceptance in Lieu scheme.