Henry Moore sculpture sells for £26m at auction

Published: 06 March 2026
The English Chronicle Desk
The English Chronicle Online

A landmark sculpture by Henry Moore has sold for £26.3 million at Christie’s London, setting a new world auction record for the British artist .

King and Queen, conceived between 1952 and 1953, was the top-selling lot of the auction house’s 20/21 Evening Sales, which generated a total of £197.5 million on 5 March . The piece attracted nearly eight minutes of bidding from six prospective buyers before finally selling for 76 per cent above its pre-sale high estimate of £15 million .

The 164-centimetre tall bronze had remained in the same private British collection for more than seven decades, having been purchased directly from Moore’s studio in 1953 . It is the only cast of this particular sculpture still in private hands, with other examples held in major public institutions including the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C., the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp and the MOA Museum of Art in Japan . Two further casts were produced subsequently for the Tate Collection in 1957 and the Henry Moore Foundation in 1985 .

Art critic Robert Melville described the work in 1954 as “Moore’s finest achievement since the war, and probably the most graceful of all his works” . The sculpture depicts two seated regal figures, their forms blending abstraction with figuration in a manner that became characteristic of Moore’s post-war output .

Speaking before the auction, Katharine Arnold, Vice-Chairman of 20th/21st Century Art at Christie’s, said the work was “the most exciting sculpture I’ve ever seen brought to market” . Philip Harley, Senior Director in Modern British and Irish Art at Christie’s, described it as “undisputedly a masterpiece” with “incredible presence” that ranks as “arguably his finest achievement in bronze” .

Moore drew inspiration for the piece from a variety of sources, including an ancient Egyptian double portrait of a pharaoh and his wife in the British Museum . The sculptor was fascinated by how the ancient work conveyed the differences between male and female forms while retaining a sense of intimacy . The angular, almost beak-like head of the king emerged spontaneously as Moore moulded a piece of wax, while the queen’s more refined features evolved through sustained experimentation .

In contrast to the stylised heads, the hands and feet were rendered with striking realism. Moore explained that he made these details more naturalistic “to bring out the contrast between human grace and the concept of power in primitive kingship” . The queen’s gently clasped hands were modelled on those of the artist’s wife, Irina Moore, while the king’s hands and feet were reportedly based on Philip Hendy, then director of the National Gallery in London .

The work represents a pivotal moment in Moore’s career, marking his move towards placing bronze sculptures in landscape settings . “It was like a moment of realisation that his work could then go on to become larger scale and be placed outdoors,” Harley explained .

Moore, who was born in Castleford, West Yorkshire, in 1898, studied at Leeds School of Art alongside fellow sculptor Barbara Hepworth before attending the Royal College of Art in London . He went on to become one of Britain’s most celebrated sculptors, winning the International Sculpture Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1948 . His works can now be found in public parks and plazas worldwide, as well as in the collections of major museums including the Tate, the Guggenheim and the Art Gallery of Ontario .

The previous auction record for a Moore sculpture was set in 2016, when Reclining Figure: Festival (1951) sold for £24.7 million at Christie’s New York .

Christie’s 20/21 Evening Sales, which also included works by Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso and Gerhard Richter, achieved a 52 per cent increase on the total from the previous year, with 96 per cent of lots sold . The sales marked the unveiling of a newly redesigned rostrum by Sir Jony Ive and his team at LoveFrom, created for the auction house’s 260th anniversary .

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