Christie’s $57m Surrealism Sale Grabs Headlines But the Reality Isn’t So Rosy

3 min read · 09 Mar 2026

Dorothea Tanning's Children's Games (1942) sold for $6.26m with fees, setting a new auction record for the artist. Image courtesy of Christie's

Christie’s hailed its Art of the Surreal sale in London last week as a white-glove auction, with every lot sold. But that headline skips a key detail: a late Magritte, estimated at nearly $7m, was pulled before the sale and 100% sell-through rate on March 5 tells only part of the story.

The sale’s total, while an impressive $57.42m including fees, was about 10% below the auction house’s average of Surrealism sales, and overall the sale earned a B- on the HENI Auction Index.

This was down from a B last year and an A- in March 2024.

Another late work by the Belgian Surrealist—this one backed by a guarantee—took top spot. Les grâces naturelles (1961), recently on loan to Brussels’ Magritte Museum, brought $11.38m with fees.

Record-breaking works by Dorothea Tanning, with a romantic backstory, and the Czech artist Toyen, also helped boost the auction house’s bottom line.

The B- auction was was down from a B last year and an A- in March 2024.

The HENI Auction Index is a unique score based on more than ten key metrics, including the percentage of lots hammering above their low estimates, which declined to 69%, from 83% last year.

On the positive side, the percentage of lots hammering above their high estimates increased two percentage points to 35%.

Both were 10% below averages in previous comparable sales, however.

The average hammer-to-mid-estimate ratio fell from 1.4 to 1.2, 10% below average.

Another data point, the average number of bidders, declined from 3.1 to 2.8.

There were no strong guarantees or irrevocable bids when works sold for on or above their high estimate.

The sale was notable for the strong performance by female Surrealists. The Czech artist Toyen saw her auction record broken when Le devenir de la liberté (1946) sold for $4.96m, more than three times the low estimate.

The sale beat the artist’s previous auction record by $1.27m, a 34% rise.

Tanning's Children's Games, which fetched $6.26m with fees, more than four and a half times the low estimate, is a small but erotically powerful work.

Painted in 1942, it measures just over 9 inches by 5 inches, so is now worth around $1m per square inch.

The sale beat the artist’s previous auction record by $2.86m, a 83% rise.The oil on canvas has a backstory to match its headline-making price. It was long in the collection of the performer and writer Gypsy Rose Lee and was first owned by the Surrealist pioneer Max Ernst. He admired both the painting and its creator at first sight. A 1943 visit to Tanning’s studio, to source works for his then-wife Peggy Guggenheim’s landmark exhibition of women artists, sparked a love affair.

Tanning and Ernst married in 1946, soon after his divorce from Guggenheim, in a memorable double ceremony with fellow Surrealist Man Ray, who wed Juliet Browner the same day in Beverly Hills.

Total sales revenue and number of lots were around 10% and 20% below the averages in the 20 previous episodes of the sale respectively.

The % of lots hammering above their low estimates declined to 69%, from 83% last year, while the % of lots hammering above their high estimates increased two percentage points to 35%.