The numbers are in: Christie’s auction series of 900 items from Elton John’s collection concluded on Wednesday with a total of $20.5 million in sales, surpassing its low estimate by more than double.
Collectors snapped up paintings, photographs, custom-designed clothes, fine jewelry, and other items. Other highlights from the several-day sale, which began on February 22, included Banksy’s Thrower Triptych (2017), which sold on opening night for nearly $2 million; an untitled Keith Haring from 1982 that fetched $756,000; and a pair of silver leather platform boots adorned on either side with John’s initials in a vivacious red, which realized $94,500—about 19 times its low estimate of $5,000.
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Bonnie Brennan, president of Christie’s Americas, said in a statement: “It was a great honor for Christie’s to have been entrusted with the auction of the contents of Elton John’s Atlanta home. The collection was assembled over 30 years in an American city that meant so much to Elton John and his family.”
John’s photography collection represented over 350 of the lots—about one third of the whole collection—and included works by seminal fashion photographers Richard Avedon, Steven Meisel, and Irving Penn. One Avedon silver print, depicting a serpent coiling around a naked Nastassja Kinski, went for $201,600.
“Beyond including artistic and personal treasures the sale cemented the cultural legacy of one of the world’s most iconic figures,” Darius Himes, Christie’s international head of photographs, said in a statement.