Christie's staged its first dedicated fine art auction in Abu Dhabi on 1 November, and the evening closed at $8,940,800. Held at The Abu Dhabi EDITION under the title MAWASIM: 20 Years of Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art, the sale marked two decades since the house's first auction in the United Arab Emirates, in Dubai in 2006. Of 68 works by 56 artists from the Middle East and North Africa, 60 found buyers, and the night produced new auction records for ten artists.

The top lot was Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian's Variations on the Hexagon, a mirrored mosaic panel from 2006 measuring 183 by 130 centimetres. Nearly seven minutes of competitive bidding carried it to $844,800, far beyond its $150,000 to $250,000 estimate and past the artist's previous record of $520,000, set at Tehran Auction in 2022. The panel was one of six monumental works commissioned for the opening of the Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where it was shown in 2006 before appearing at the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern in 2008.

Other leading results underlined the depth of bidding. Fahrelnissa Zeid's Composition of 1948-49 reached $524,800, while Paul Guiragossian's Noces (Wedding) of 1958-59 sold for $486,400, a record for the artist's oil-on-masonite works. Jellal Ben Abdallah's Les Musiciennes of 1973 made $204,800, more than four times his previous record of $50,780. Four artists making their auction debuts — Nabil Kanso, Rami Farook, Fatma Lootah and Afra Al Dhaheri — also set records.

The audience itself pointed to a changing market. Christie's said more than 30 per cent of those registered were millennials or members of Generation Z, and 37 per cent were new clients of the house. The sale opens a crowded season in the capital: the inaugural Frieze Abu Dhabi follows on 19-22 November, and Sotheby's holds its first art auction in the city on 10 December.