No. 61 (Rust and Blue) Auction History

1953: Painted by Mark Rothko; catalogued by David Anfam as CR no. 492 [1].

By 1957–1964: In the collection of Giuseppe and Giovanna Panza di Biumo, acquired during the period when the Panzas assembled their Rothkos [3].

1984–present: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), accession 84.9; credit line “The Panza Collection (gift/purchase)” [2]. Primary documentation of the MOCA–Panza transaction is preserved in the Getty Research Institute’s Panza papers [5].

No. 61 (Rust and Blue) has no public-auction history because it has been in MOCA’s collection since the museum’s 1984 acquisition of the Panza Collection (accession 84.9) [2][3]. Contemporary reporting cited about $11 million for the entire 80-work tranche—useful context for the institutional transaction, but not a per‑object valuation [4]. As a result, the painting’s market story is defined by museum stewardship rather than trading activity.

Even without a direct sale record, this canvas sits squarely within the profile of Rothkos that command the highest prices when they do appear: large, luminous color-field works from the late 1950s and early 1960s. Public benchmarks include Orange, Red, Yellow (1961) at $86.88 million (Christie’s, 2012) [6], No. 10 (1958) at $81.925 million (Christie’s, 2015) [7], and No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) (1954) at $75.1 million (Sotheby’s, 2012) [8]. More recently, a 1955 Rothko realized $46.4 million at Christie’s in 2023, underscoring sustained demand for high-quality examples even in changing markets [9]. These comparables highlight the category’s strength but should not be read as value indications for this museum-held picture.

Museum ownership meaningfully constrains supply, which can support pricing for comparable works in private hands. For Rothko, the placement of prime-period canvases like No. 61 (CR 492) in public collections elevates the artist’s canon while focusing private demand on the limited pool of similar works that reach auction [1][2]. For definitive, object-level provenance prior to the Panza years, consult Anfam’s catalogue raisonné and the Getty Research Institute’s Panza papers, which include MOCA–Panza contracts and bills of sale [1][5].