Sotheby’s Expects to Auction a 1959 Receipt for An Imaginary Piece of Art for Nearly $551K

Sotheby’s Expects to Auction a 1959 Receipt for An Imaginary Piece of Art for Nearly $551K

Sotheby's has put up for auction a 1959 receipt for an imaginary piece of art that does not exist. Yet the art house says it expects to earn between $330,000 and $551,000.

The receipt, set to be auctioned in Paris on April 6, was issued by French artist Yves Klein. Sotheby's France compares the artist's "revolutionary concept" to today's blockchain, considering it a precursor of sorts to the digital NFT (non-fungible token).

The idea is to allow art lovers to become owners of chunks of a "zones of immaterial pictorial sensibility" or "zones de sensibilite picturale immaterielle" in French.