World record prices in all painting categories, the best year for modern art and the best year in the history of the house: at the Dorotheum, 2021 was a year of success. The art market sent positive signals: alternative investments, which include works of art, are in high demand. "The rapidly increasing number of online bids alone shows that our offers are excellently accepted. This is also thanks to the large-scale digital strategy of the house even before the pandemic," sums up Martin Böhm, managing partner of the Dorotheum: "We are continuously working on expanding our digital presence."

The Modern Art section scored particularly well, achieving the best overall result in the history of the Dorotheum. And this despite the fact that one could only visit the exhibition of the November auction virtually, and only participate in the auction by telephone, in writing and by live bidding.

With 1,031,930 euros for Albin Egger-Lienz's monumental work "Totentanz 1809" from 1916, there was an auction record for a work by this artist at the June 2021 auction. After the world record price of 965,300 euros for a painting by Alfons Walde in June, the Dorotheum achieved another top price in November: for 790,500 euros, the Tyrolean motif "Wilder Kaiser mit Bauernhof im Winter" was knocked down to a prospective buyer on the telephone after a bidding battle lasting several minutes. Prices far exceeded expectations for works by Andre Derain and Fernand Léger, among others.

At the beginning of December, the Dorotheum recorded its best auction of wristwatches to date: More than one million euros were realised from the sale of an Austrian private collection alone. In addition to jewellery, art nouveau and design, the classic cars section was traditionally strong: here the Italians came out on top with the 1971 Dino 246 GT and the 1979 Lamborghini Countach LP400 S (€ 495,800, € 460,000).