Jeff Koons Appears to Be the ‘Distinguished Collector’ Offering $100 M. in Old and Modern Masters at Christie’s

A collection of nine artworks totaling in the area of $100 million will come to auction at Christie’s New York, reportedly from the holdings of famed American artist Jeff Koons.

The auction house did not confirm the seller’s identity, but two unnamed industry sources tell the New York Times that Koons is the seller. (The house also declined to comment to ARTnews.) The newspaper reports that Koons plans to invest the proceeds into his own notoriously resource-intensive art practice and that the house has guaranteed the artist a minimum price.

Koons became the highest-selling living artist at auction when his sculpture Rabbit (1986) fetched $91.1 million at Christie’s in 2019. However, his auction market has declined in the years since.

The purported Koons sale—dubbed “Heroes and Lovers”—comprises a wide range of works dating from the Old Masters through Modernism. Seven pieces will go to the block during the house’s November 17 20th-century art sale, while the two Old Masters will be offered during Classics Week in 2027. Leading the pack with four works, including the top-estimated piece, is Pablo Picasso; the sale also includes examples by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem, François Le Moyne, Édouard Manet, and Tilman Riemenschneider.

Picasso’s Le Baiser (1969) shows two lovers entwined in a kiss and is estimated at $40 million. Koons bought it at auction at Sotheby’s in 2008 for $17.4 million ($27.1 million adjusted for inflation). He purchased Couple (1969) at the same house three years later for $10.5 million ($15.6 million in today’s dollars); Sotheby’s has not published an estimate for that work. Also by the Spaniard and without published estimates are Tête de femme (Dora Maar) (1941), depicting the photographer who was then his lover, and another Tête de femme (1940).

The Picassos account for the “lovers” aspect of the sale’s branding; the “heroes” refers to Van Haarlem’s Hercules and Achelous (1590), in which the hero and a river god compete for a bride. Koons purchased the piece in 2008 for $8.1 million ($12.6 million adjusted for inflation). It is estimated at about $12 million. The Times points out that Koons based one of his “Gazing Ball” paintings on a canvas by the Dutchman.

Koons also recently teamed up with Swiss luxury watchmaker Hublot on a collaboration in which he adapted his famed balloon dog sculptures for a timepiece that retails for $21,500 and a limited-edition MP-14 Origin that sells for $488,000. He also branched out this year into designing bottles for Evian’s 200th anniversary. The artist returned to Gagosian Gallery in 2025 after leaving the gallery for David Zwirner and Pace four years earlier.

Christie’s announcement comes as the auction houses unveil consignments for their marquee November New York sales, including a $450 million collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works from Argentina’s Blaquier family, featuring pieces by Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, and others, that will go to Sotheby’s.