Sotheby's Paris has closed its October marquee sale series with a total of €137.7 million, or about $154.6 million, which the house describes as the highest total it has ever achieved for a marquee sale series in Paris. The figure was announced in a press release dated 23 October 2026, at the end of a week in which the French capital briefly became the centre of the international art market.

The series was anchored by the Schlumberger collection sale on 22 October, whose headline lot was Claude Monet's Iris, painted in 1924-25. The large late canvas, which had never been shown in public before the sale preview, sold for €50 million including fees, making it the most expensive work ever sold at auction in France. It had carried an estimate of €22 million to €30 million, the highest valuation ever placed on a painting offered in France.

The week's other marquee sessions included the Modernités sale on 23 October, which totalled $43.43 million, with works by František Kupka and Alberto Giacometti among the lots that beat their low estimates. Together, the sales unfolded alongside a shortened Art Basel Paris, which closed two days early after organisers cited planned demonstrations and safety concerns across the city.

For Sotheby's, the result underlines how far Paris has come as a selling centre. A decade ago the city was often treated as a secondary stage to London and New York for top-tier evening sales. The October series, built around a single-owner collection, a modern-art sale and a surrealist session, instead put Paris at the top of the house's own record book for a marquee week.