Painting by Pissarro Fetches Record $6.6 Million at Auction

A record was set Wednesday for the artist Camille Pissarro at Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern art auction when “La Rue Saint-Lazare” sold for $6,605,750.

The price for the 1893 painting, which depicts a bustling Parisian street scene around the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris and combines elements of Impressionism and post-Impressionism, easily eclipsed the old record for a Pissarro of $3,962,300 and made it the top lot of the $33.1-million sale.

Sotheby’s was the last of the three top auction houses to hold its Impressionist and modern art auction this week, and its sale was modest by comparison with those of Phillips and Christie’s, both of which landed major private collections.

Among the sale’s other highlights were Matisse’s “Anemones au Miroir Noir,” which sold for $4,185,750, or in the mid-range of its pre-sale estimate, and Braque’s “La Calanque de Figuerolles, la Ciotat,” which fetched $2,755,750, just shy of its low estimate of $3 million.