From coverage in ARTnews:
Unseen for 30 Years, Van Gogh Harbor Scene Is Poised to Shatter Auction Records in Asia
If the high estimate [$49 million] is met, Les canots amarrés will become the most expensive work by a Western artist sold at auction in Asia, beating the present record-holder, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1982 painting Warrior, which fetched HK$323.6 million ($41.7 million) at Christie’s in 2021.
Auction link: Vincent Van Goph - "Les canots amarrés"
The pre-auction estimate is HKD 230,000,000 – HKD 380,000,000 (i.e. USD 29.5 million - USD 48.7 million) This market resolves YES if the final sale price listed on the Christie's website is >50 million USD.
Resolution details
Example from a past auction: this painting by Gentileschi has a "price realised" of USD 982,800. This is the equivalent number I will use—whatever is displayed by the auction page.
Note that the final listed sale price typically includes the buyer's premium (and potentially other fees).
If the lot is withdrawn before the auction, this market resolves N/A. If it is bid on at the auction, but does not ultimately sell, it resolves NO.
The sale price may be reported in HKD. If Christie's also reports a USD price, I will use that. Otherwise, I will use the Yahoo currency converter on the day I resolve the market.
Painting details
As a result of these influences, Van Gogh forged forward with the creation of his own painterly style, both in terms of subject matter and handling. Leaving behind the dark, earthy tones of his realist paintings, he looked to the distinctive handling of the pointillists, experimenting with this radical mode of facture, which lightened and refined his painterly touch, allowing his canvases to be filled with a sense of atmosphere, as seen in Les canots amarrés. The implementation of the carefully calculated scientific theory that Seurat and Signac practiced in their painting, did not ultimately appeal to Van Gogh, who went about discovering his own, more instinctive way with colour. Instead of the prescribed pointillist dot painstakingly placed on the canvas, Van Gogh preferred longer strokes, as seen in the present work, as well as an often more irregular combination of dots, dashes, and hatched, parallel strokes depending on the motif or object he was painting. (Lot essay)
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YIKES. Not even close. It sold for HKD 250.625 million -> USD 32.2 million, well below its estimate. Resolves NO. Here's coverage in The Art Newspaper:
Vincent van Gogh’s Les canots amarrés, one of a series of paintings of the Seine made in the summer of 1887 in the Parisian suburb of Asnières-sur-Seine, was estimated to sell for between HK$230m and HK$380m ($30m-$50m), but went for HK$215m (HK$250.6m/$32.2m with fees), the top price of the sale.
That is a record for Van Gogh in Asia and it sold to a bidder, seemingly from the US, on the phone with Max Carter, the vice chairman for 20th and 21st century art at Christie’s Americas. Earlier this month, The Art Newspaper’s Van Gogh expert Martin Bailey described Les canots amarrés as “one of the most important works of Western art to go under the hammer in Asia”. Bailey also reported that, although the official line is that Les canots amarrés was being sold by “a family trust represented by the royal family of Bourbon-Two Sicilies and Mr Patrick L. Abraham”, the seller is effectively Princess Camilla, of the Bourbon-Two Sicilies family.
I'll add that the essay for the painting kept emphasizing its importance within a triptych of works, which was strange to me... if I'm gonna spend $50 million on a painting, I certainly hope it stands on its own.