As bronze sculpture prices climb, do Moore’s small-scale works signal renewed collector appetite for modernist abstraction?
Christie’s · Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale
Estimate: $40,000–$60,000 · Hammer: $82,550 (106% above low estimate)
The Work
The Work
“Three Piece Reclining Figure: Maquette No. 4” represents Moore at his most recognizable—a bronze maquette exploring the reclining figure, the artist’s foundational preoccupation across five decades. Maquettes, by definition modest in scale and intimate in conception, served Moore as three-dimensional studies for monumental public works; this piece likely dates from the 1960s or 1970s, when the Three Piece Reclining Figure series occupied his practice intensely. The work distills Moore’s vocabulary of abstracted human form: organic voids, biomorphic curves, and the tension between solid mass and negative space that defined his modernist project.
What distinguishes this particular maquette is its specificity within a prolific serial exploration. Moore revisited the three-piece configuration obsessively, producing dozens of variations; each numbered iteration represents a distinct formal investigation rather than mere repetition. Collectors prize maquettes not as preliminary sketches but as autonomous works—they preserve Moore’s hand and decision-making in their purest state, before enlargement or foundry mediation.
The hammer price’s 106 percent premium over low estimate reflects sustained institutional and private appetite for Moore bronzes of this caliber. Maquettes command premium multiples when they demonstrate clear lineage to significant public commissions, possess strong provenance, or—as here—embody the essential geometric language that secured Moore’s canonical status. The room’s enthusiasm suggests confident authentication and likely institutional interest.
The Artist
Henry Moore (1898–1986) stands as Britain’s preeminent modernist sculptor and arguably the most consequential British artist of the twentieth century. Born in Castleford, Yorkshire, Moore trained at Leeds School of Art before moving to London in 1921, where he studied under A.S. Bartlett at the Royal College of Art. His early exposure to African and pre-Columbian sculpture—particularly during visits to the British Museum—proved formative, nudging him away from academic realism toward abstraction and biomorphic form. By the late 1920s, Moore had established himself as a radical voice in British sculpture, one of the few artists working in genuine abstraction during an era when the country remained largely resistant to modernist experiment.
Moore’s artistic maturity coincided with the rise of Constructivism and the Surrealist movement, though his work resisted easy categorization. While associated with the Surrealists’ embrace of organic, dreamlike forms, Moore remained fundamentally a formalist concerned with volume, void, and the relationship between sculpture and landscape. His reclining figures—the subject that would define his career—emerged in the 1930s as meditations on the human body abstracted into pure sculptural language. The Second World War only deepened his reputation; his shelter drawings, executed in the London Underground during the Blitz, became iconic images of British cultural resilience. Postwar, Moore’s international standing soared. By mid-century, he was arguably the world’s most celebrated living sculptor, exhibited alongside Picasso and Matisse, his work commanding museum attention from MoMA to the Tate.
Moore’s market has remained remarkably robust for seven decades. The primary market for his editions and multiples has always been strong, but auction prices for original works and maquettes have tracked his sustained critical esteem. Unlike many mid-century figures whose reputations have contracted, Moore’s has held steady, anchored by institutional reverence and the sheer quality of his formal innovation. Prices peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s, softened during the 2008 financial crisis, then recovered steadily through the 2010s. Today, Moore occupies the upper tier of the postwar sculpture market, sitting comfortably below only Giacometti among European sculptors of his generation.
This Christie’s result—fetching $82,550 against a $40,000–$60,000 estimate—represents a confident affirmation rather than a breakthrough. The 106 percent premium above the low estimate reflects Moore’s reliable collector demand and the particular appeal of maquettes, which offer access to his sculptural thinking at an intimate scale. For a work of this caliber, this price falls well within expected parameters, suggesting steady, unflustered market health rather than speculative fever.
Data: Christie’s. Lot: 6584248.