"Czech Mona Lisa" broke auction records and sold for 57 million crowns
Egg, or also Action I, is a departure from the usual work of modernist painter Mikuláš Medek. His figures are usually red. The depicted woman breaking the egg, however, is one of only two figures in his entire portfolio rendered in blue. This beautiful and unconventional painting belonged to an American owner for a long time and returned to the Czech Republic after seventeen years.
After a long and dramatic auction at the Arthouse Hejtmánek gallery, the jury is out. The painting was auctioned for more than 57 million Czech crowns. The course of the auction thus set a record as far as Czech post-war modernist art is concerned.
"The painting Action I, or Egg, is an iconic painting and can be boldly said to depict the Czech Mona Lisa of the 20th century," said Tomáš Hejtmánek, owner of Arthouse Hejtmánek. His auction house was also behind the auction of Medek's most expensive painting to date: Akce II (The Wave), the second of the painter's two "blue" paintings, sold at a recent auction in Florida for nearly CZK 25 million. The painting was then auctioned through Arthouse Hejtmánek for a Czech collector.
"Woman Breaking an Egg. The situation is generally mundane, but I was interested in the egg as a symbol. And then also its fragility. I understood this ordinariness as a liminal situation," said Mikuláš Medek himself about the painting, for whom the egg, a symbol of life and its fragility, was his favourite object.
But this was not the only interesting painting or art object that sold at this garden auction at Arthouse Hejtmánek. For example, there was the painting At the Counter by Josef Čapek from 1933, which fetched CZK 9.5 million, a glazed cubist vase by Vlastislav Hofman or a fan-back chair designed by architect Adolf Loos.
Among the rarities of the garden auction was also a Petrof AP 225 piano, which has been used since 2016 by concert stars at the Prague Rudolfinum. The rare instrument, also favoured by the outstanding Czech pianist Ivo Kahánek, was sold for CZK 1,860,000.
Arthouse Hejtmánek has already set a number of auction records: the most expensive work sold here so far in 2017 was a large-format painting of Prague (1936-1937) by Oskar Kokoschka, auctioned by a telephone bidder for more than CZK 52 million.
