Paris's auction houses are heading into their biggest week on record. Evening sales at Christie's and Sotheby's are expected to fetch €185–€266.3 million ($207.9–$299.2 million) across five sales in two days — the highest combined estimate for the sale week to date. Last October the rival houses made a combined $212 million across six auctions, already 30 percent above 2024's equivalent sales.

At Christie's, a 27-lot sale from the heirs of 19th-century dealer Paul Durand-Ruel is led by Monet's Bord des falaises à Pourville (1882), estimated at $12.67 million to $17.27 million. Across town, Sotheby's offers 27 lots from the Schlumberger Collection at €44.1 million to €60.6 million, led by Monet's Iris (1924–25) — the largest work from the artist's final decade still in private hands — at €22 million to €30 million, the highest estimate ever set for a painting sold in France. Hours before the sale, Sotheby's withdrew three Cézanne paintings, worth $1.6 million to $2.3 million together, after the town of Aix-en-Provence, backed by the French Ministry of Culture, moved to acquire them for the Musée Granet following their designation as national treasures.

Christie's 20th and 21st century sale, now incorporating the relocated "Thinking Italian" section, is led by Fontana's 1961 Concetto spaziale, Mezzogiorno in Piazza S. Marco ($6.2 million–$8.4 million) in an 84-lot, $99.3 million–$142 million auction. Sotheby's Friday Modernités sale is headed by Kupka's Espace non-descriptif (1914–22) at $6.7 million–$9 million; within estimate it would become the second-priciest Kupka ever sold. The house's Surrealism and Its Legacy sale follows with $29.6 million–$42.7 million, led by Magritte's Morceaux Choisis (1950) at $5.6 million–$7.9 million.

Phillips has already delivered its numbers: its modern and contemporary sale on 21 October made $5.6 million across 53 lots with 91 percent sold, topped by Miró's 1930 Peinture at $565,500, and set an auction record for Chinese painter Liu Guofu, whose Cold Mountain 25-6 (2025) sold for $319,000 against a $67,400–$89,900 estimate. Notably absent from the week's offerings: almost no contemporary art, and zero emerging contemporary — as one advisor put it, "it's back to the classics."