Christie's King Street sold 50 of 54 lots from Klaus Hegewisch's collection of prints and drawings for £8.9 million, led by a Picasso study for Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.
Klaus Hegewisch’s collection of prints and drawings came to Christie’s King Street in St James’s on Thursday 16 October 2025, in Frieze week. Of its 54 lots, 50 sold for £8.9 million.
A Hamburg merchant and sailor, Hegewisch lived from 1919 to 2014 and began collecting once the Second World War had ended. The Hamburger Kunsthalle opened the Hegewisch-Kabinett in 1997 to show the collection in rotating exhibitions, and it ran for two decades.
He collected from Dürer and Rembrandt through Goya and Redon to Munch, Dix and Beckmann. Part I was the first of three sales, with further parts announced for March and September 2026.
The lots ran through seven chapters, from Charms, Spells and Curses to Melancholy and Landscapes of the Mind. Picasso’s 1907 study for Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Nez quart de Brie, led the session.
Of the lots that sold, 72 per cent exceeded their high estimates. A Gustave Doré illustration for Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven made about 14 times its low estimate. Picasso’s 1904 etching Le repas frugal, estimated at £1.5 million to £2.5 million, was bought in.