PARIS, February 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Giacometti, the new Picasso. This wednesday February 3rd, Sotheby's London's evening sale was a time for a new world record. L'Homme qui marche I, Alberto GIACOMETTI's human-size bronze, was auctioned GBP58M (GBP65M premium included), for a GBP12M-18M estimate, and is now the most expensive artwork ever auctioned. Giacometti has superseded Pablo Picasso's Garcon a la Pipe that sold for $93M (GBP51.8M) on 5 May 2004 at Sotheby's.

Giacometti has exceeded his own 2009 total sales revenue with one single auction record. The GBP58M L'Homme qui marche I alone has yielded more profits than the 170 artworks (including 22 sculptures) put up for auction in 2009. This sale's global revenue is Sotheby's London's most profitable sale (GBP146.8M premiums included) and points out to the art market revitalizing in 2010 after a 1 and a half-year crisis.

EUR100 invested in 1998 in a work of Alberto GIACOMETTI (1901-1966) have an average value of EUR490 in January 2010

ART MARKET CONFIDENCE INDEX(R) by Artprice

Boosted by a sentiment of middle-term upturn, the AMCI earns 5 points this week: 45% of the art market players believe in a auspicious evolution in art prices and in the economic situation in the months to come.

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Artprice, the world leader in art market information, lists over 25 million auction prices and indices covering over 405,000 artists, continuously updated from 2,900 international auction houses. Artprice provides daily information on art market trends for the main financial press titles and agencies worldwide. Artprice Images(R) offers unlimited access to the largest database of art market information in the world, a library of 108,000,000 images and engravings of art works from 1700 to the present day. Artprice offers standardised adverts to its 1,300,000 members (member log in) and is the world's leading market for buying and selling works of art (source: Artprice).

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