According to Il Sole 24 Ore, the first evening auction of London Art Week at Christie's on 14 October brought out a protracted series of bids involving at least five contenders for Liubov Popova's 1918 'Painterly Architectonic', a geometric Futurist-Suprematist composition.

The work went to a buyer in the auction room for £7.6 million including fees, three times the high estimate of £1.8–2.5 million, and set a new record for the Russian avant-garde artist, who died in 1924 at just 35. The same evening, a Mondrian composition and a Miró were far less dramatic affairs.

The surprise is not just the price but the pattern it breaks.

Il Sole 24 Ore notes that four of the top six results at the Peter Simon collection sale came from early-20th-century international avant-garde works, yet several of those only reached their lower estimates because guarantors took them — including a predominantly white Mondrian from 1935 that went to its guarantor at £9.7 million against an £8–12 million estimate.

Popova's canvas, by contrast, ignited genuine competitive bidding and soared past every expectation, suggesting collectors will pay a steep premium for the very best works even when the wider catalogue needs guarantees.

The wider sale made history of its own.

Il Sole 24 Ore reports that the 41-lot evening auction of the collection of Peter Simon, the textile entrepreneur who founded Monsoon, realized £107.5 million within its pre-sale estimate of £78.7–115.09 million, setting a record for a collection sold in London, with only one lot unsold.

Every work was guaranteed — a quarter by Christie's and three-quarters by third parties, ten guarantors added — and guarantors bought about a quarter of the lots, including four of the top ten. Bridget Riley's 'Streak 2' also set a new record at £5.2 million.

Popova's record landed alongside another headline result at the same Christie's series.

NL Times reports that Piet Mondrian's 1920 'Composition III' sold for £25,235,000, roughly €29 million, at the 20th/21st Century London Evening Sale, the second-most expensive work of the evening behind Kandinsky's 'Das bunte Leben' at £31.56 million.

NL Times notes the 53.4 by 51.2 cm painting had not been publicly exhibited for 25 years, per The Art Newspaper, and that only eight major Mondrian paintings were completed in the pivotal year 1920, with five held by institutions including the Tate, MoMA and the Stedelijk.

It was not the artist's record — a 1922 composition took $47.6 million in New York in 2025.