LONDON.- Today, at Sotheby’s in London, Vilhelm Hammershøi’s Interior, Strandgade 30 sold for £2,045,000 / Danish Krone 21,349,113 / US$3,175,680, far exceeding its pre-sale estimate of £700,000-900,000 / Danish Krone 7.3 – 9.4 million / US$1.1 – 1.4 million, and establishing a record for the artist at auction and a record for any Danish work of art at auction. The painting was hotly pursued by four bidders on the telephones, before finally selling to an American Private Collector.

Commenting on the results, Nina Wedell-Wedellsborg, Head of Sotheby’s Denmark, said: “We are thrilled that Hammershøi’s ‘Interior, Strandgade 30’ established a new record for the artist at auction, and also a record for any Danish work of art at auction. Hammershøi is an artist whom Danish people hold close to their hearts. But with his ascent to international status through recent high-profile exhibitions, record-breaking prices at auction, and his unique aesthetic that finds resonance among collectors of both Old Masters and Modern and Contemporary art, he has been embraced around the world, in academic circles, among art collectors, and also by the wider public.”

Continuing, Claude Piening, Senior Director, Sotheby’s 19th Century European Paintings Department, said: “Bidding was international, with interest from Scandinavia, North America and South America. Hammershøi appeals to the tastes of the 21st-century collector. His vision both harks back to the interiors of Johannes Vermeer, and anticipates the qualities that define the work of twentieth-century painters including Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, and Gerhard Richter. It is perhaps this universality that so appeals to the collecting community.”

Interior, Strandgade 30, painted circa 1905, was acquired directly from the artist and has remained in the collection of the same family ever since. Strandgade 30 in Copenhagen, where the artist and his wife Ida lived from 1899 to 1909, serves as the setting for Hammershøi's most important interiors. The small living room seen here, situated at the back of their first-floor apartment with its window overlooking the courtyard, was a motif that fascinated the artist throughout his decade at the address. The composition is the basis of at least nine significant oils of 1900 to 1909, five of which are in public collections in Scandinavia, London and New York, including Moonlight, Strandgade 30, acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2012.

The price achieved today handsomely surpasses the previous record for a work by Hammershøi at auction and for a work by any Danish work of art at auction, established at Sotheby’s on 11 June 2012 when the artist’s Ida Reading a Letter sold for £1.72 million (Danish Krone 15.75 million / US$2.68 million).