Dutch artist Mondrian's Composition III fetches €29 million at London art auction

Dutch artist Piet Mondrian’s painting Composition III sold for £25,235,000, approximately €29 million, at Christie's in London on Wednesday. The oil painting, created in 1920, was offered at auction for the first time and sold as part of Christie's 20th/21st Century London Evening Sale.

The painting had been estimated to sell for between £20 million and £30 million, putting the final price within its expected range. It was the second-most expensive work in the evening sale, behind Wassily Kandinsky's Das bunte Leben, which fetched £31.56 million.

The painting measures just 53.4 by 51.2 centimetres, roughly the size of a small square side table. Despite its modest dimensions, it is considered an important work in the development of modern abstract art.

The year 1920 was a turning point for Mondrian. He completed only eight major paintings that year as he explored the principles of Neo-Plasticism. Five are now held by major institutions, including the Tate in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

That leaves very few paintings from this formative period in private hands. The rarity of Composition III, combined with its artistic importance, helped drive its high valuation. The painting had not been publicly exhibited for 25 years before the auction, according to The Art Newspaper.

The £25.235 million sale is not a record for the artist. Mondriaan’s 1922 Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue sold for $47.6 million at Christie’s, New York, in 2025