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Rückblick 2025

REVIEW 2025

A Retrospective of the Year 2025 at Koller

EDITORIAL

DEAR
READER

Over the past year, we once again had the privilege of working with many exceptional works of art. Among the earliest was an impressive Cycladic idol dating back some 4500 years; among the most recent, ‘Head No. 1’, a mirrored stainless-steel head created by Not Vital in 2013. ↘

FACTS & FIGURES

KOLLER
INTERNATIONAL

For us – and we believe also for many of our clients – 2025 was a highly successful auction year. Demand for art, exceptional objects, as well as rare jewellery and wristwatches, was remarkably strong. Our multi-day auction series in March, June, September and November achieved excellent results. ↘

NEWS

KOLLER
CITY SPACE

Back to our roots – under this guiding theme, we have opened the new KOLLER CITY SPACE in January 2026 at Rämistrasse 5. This is where our auction house was based for thirty years, and with this move, the story now comes full circle. ↘

IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN ART

A FORTUNATE
REDISCOVERY

Sometimes the most compelling art stories begin not in a museum or an auction room, but in a living room – among antiques, family memories, and paintings that have simply belonged there for generations. This was also the case in the rediscovery and subsequent auction of ‘Saint-Tropez, port en fête’ by Paul Signac: one of the highlights of our 2025 auction year. ↘

‘I have
just discovered
happiness.’

Paul Signac,
upon arriving in
Saint-Tropez

IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN ART

CÉZANNE’S INTIMATE SCENE
IN PRIVATE HANDS

Great names from art history invariably attract attention on the art market. In 2025, our Impressionist & Modern Art department was able to place a remarkable work by Paul Cézanne with a buyer in Germany. The small-format painting ‘L’après-midi à Naples’, dating from 1876/77, addresses the myth of the Bacchanal. ↘

POST-WAR & CONTEMPORARY

ON THE PULSE
OF THE TIMES

Since Koller’s first specialist auction dedicated to Post-War & Contemporary Art in June 2008, the department has not ceased to develop. Thanks to an ever-growing international reach and focused marketing, we have succeeded in establishing a distinct position within this often highly dynamic market. ↘

POST-WAR & CONTEMPORARY

AUCTION SUCCESSES
FROM BOTERO
TO NOT VITAL

A new auction record was achieved by the Graubünden-born artist Not Vital, born in 1948. His stainless-steel sculpture ‘Head No. 1’ from 2013, of which only three examples exist, sold for CHF 112 000 – the highest auction price ever achieved for the artist, whose works are rarely offered at auction. ↘

OLD MASTER PAINTINGS

OLD MASTERS IN
THE BEST HANDS

In an auction house, unexpected encounters with artworks often occur – discoveries in the truest sense of the word. What may initially appear modest can, upon closer examination and scholarly assessment, reveal itself to be a work of great significance. Our specialists frequently come across artworks that have remained in family ownership for generations and have long been absent from public view. ↘

19TH CENTURY PAINTINGS

A NEW WAVE
OF SUCCESS

Ivan Aivazovsky is one of the most important Russian painters of the 19th century. Few of his contemporaries were able to capture water, sky, and light on canvas with such perfection and intensity as the artist from the port city of Sevastopol. ↘

19TH CENTURY PAINTINGS

‘LES BELLES
DU BAL’

At the March 2025 auction of 19th-century paintings, a large group portrait by Otto Scholderer emerged as the star of the sale. Painted in 1879/80, the work depicts ten women and two children preparing for a costume ball and attracted strong interest from museums and private collectors alike. ↘

SWISS ART

SWISS ART:
STRONG AND PROUD

In 2025, we were also able to build on the successes of recent years in the field of Swiss art, to which we dedicate two major special auctions each year. ↘

WORKS OF ART & DECORATIVE ARTS

TASTES CHANGE –
WE ADAPT

Our ‘Furniture’ department, which has existed since the founding of Koller, has evolved significantly over recent decades in line with changes in the art market. Now operating under the label Decorative Arts & Works of Art, the department focuses on rarities of European craftsmanship, sculptures and refined timepieces, as well as artworks ranging from Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance through to the Baroque, Rococo, and Historicist movements of the 19th century. ↘

COLLECTIONS &
ESTATES

Private art collections and estates always bear a personal signature, reflecting the passions and preferences of their collectors. We regularly have the pleasure of bringing works from such collections – often built up over decades – back onto the art market. ↘

JEWELLERY & GEMS

ANTIQUE &
MODERN
JEWELLERY

Historic pieces of jewellery are valued above all for their unique aesthetics and historical significance, not merely for their material worth. When both come together, the result is an exceptional object that attracts considerable attention on the market. ↘

WRISTWATCHES & POCKET WATCHES

WHITE-GLOVE
AUCTIONS

Our specialist department for wristwatches and pocket watches has continually adapted to market developments in recent years. Today, our watch auctions achieve sell-through rates of over 90 percent. White-glove auctions – sales in which every lot is sold – are no longer a rarity in this department, but have become the norm over time. ↘

PRINTS & MULTIPLES

PICASSO’S
PRINT REVOLUTION

The series of colour linocuts produced between 1954 and 1963 in collaboration with the printer Hidalgo Arnéra in Vallauris is now regarded as one of the most innovative phases in Picasso’s oeuvre. Here, the artist transforms Cranach’s elegant Renaissance figure into a strictly frontal, archaic-modern presence, creating an abstracted face of striking formal tension. ↘

ASIAN ART

FIVE DECADES
OF ASIAN ART

Koller’s Asian Art department looks back on a long history. Shortly after the founding of Galerie Koller by her brother Pierre, Antoinette Koller introduced this field. Together with the specialist Berti Aschmann, she laid the foundations in the 1970s and 1980s for outstanding results in works of art from China, Tibet, and Nepal. ↘

BOOKS & AUTOGRAPHS

EXPERTISE &
ATTENTIVE
SERVICE

Koller is one of the few major auction houses that has devoted itself consistently and with scholarly depth to books and autographs for decades. As a result, an international clientele has developed whose loyalty is based on trust, expertise, and attentive service. ↘

FROM ZURICH
TO THE WORLD

Thanks to our international representative offices in Munich, Düsseldorf, Florence, and Beijing, we are able to advise and support our clients personally on site. ↘

OUR AUCTIONS 2026

‘Wonderful works are already waiting for our forthcoming auctions.’

OUR SPECIALISTS