Sotheby’s has secured two valuable private collections for the auction house’s autumn New York sales, offering significant wins as the auction house’s losses mount amid a weakened market. And 55 works from the collection of the cosmetics billionaire Leonard Lauder, who died in June, are collectively estimated to sell for around $400m. The collection also includes works by Henri Matisse, Edvard Munch and Agnes Martin. Works from the Pritzkers' collection headed to Sotheby’s are led by Vincent van Gogh’s Romans Parisiens (Les Livres jaunes) (1887), a still-life of a stack of books with a $40m estimate. The pressure is on as a recent ArtTactic study found global auction sales fell 6.2% in the first half of 2025.