Sotheby's Lewis Collection Sale Shatters European Records at £393 Million

The combined evening total — including a separate Modern & Contemporary evening sale that followed the Lewis auction — reached £393.4 million ($520.7 million), a record for any modern and contemporary sale in London . The New York Times reported that the collection was initially expected to fetch around £190 million, meaning the final total more than doubled those initial projections .

The Top Lots

Modigliani's Nu assis au collier (1917) — The undisputed star of the night, this rare female nude sold for $63.91 million (approximately £48.4 million), setting a European auction record for a Modigliani portrait . Estimated at about £45 million ($60.6 million), the painting had not appeared at auction in over 30 years . Joe Lewis originally acquired it in 1995 for $12.4 million at Christie's .

Lucian Freud's Sleeping by the Lion Carpet — Depicting Freud's celebrated model Sue Tilley ("Big Sue"), this monumental work was offered with a pre-sale estimate of £25–35 million . At auction, it sold for £29.26 million ($38.77 million), firmly within its estimate range and marking its first-ever appearance at auction . Sotheby's salesroom erupted in applause when the hammer fell .

100% Sell-Through Rate — All 25 lots in the single-owner evening sale found buyers, a result known as a "white-glove" sale .

Collection Background and Provenance

The Lewis Collection was assembled over decades by Joe Lewis, the 89-year-old British billionaire (net worth reported as approximately $5.8 billion) and former majority owner of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, together with his daughter Vivienne Lewis . Lewis pleaded guilty to insider trading in January 2024 and was pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump in November 2025 .

The collection includes works by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Amedeo Modigliani, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Gustave Caillebotte, Edgar Degas, Chaïm Soutine, and Pablo Picasso, among others .

What's Next: The Day Sale

An additional 25 works from the Lewis Collection were scheduled for a day sale on June 25, 2026, the day after the record-setting evening auction . These lots were part of the 48-work collection originally announced by Sotheby's .

Unconfirmed Details

While the core results above are verified by multiple major news outlets and Sotheby's itself, several specific figures from the initial query could not be independently confirmed from the available source material:

Bottom Line

The Lewis Collection evening sale at Sotheby's London was a historic event for the art market. The £296.3 million single-owner total, the £393.4 million combined evening total, the European record for a single-owner sale, the $63.9 million Modigliani top lot, the £29.3 million Lucian Freud debut at auction, the 100% sell-through rate, and the provenance of Joe and Vivienne Lewis are all well-supported by major sources including Sotheby's, The New York Times, BBC, Artnet, and HENI . A few specific lot-level details — particularly those involving Klimt, Magritte, and Degas — could not be independently cross-checked with the available evidence and should be treated with caution.