This Giant Spider Sculpture Recently Auctioned for 32.8 million

It’s hard to believe that a giant spider sculpture could fetch this exorbitant amount of money, but that is exactly what happened at a sale in New York last Thursday. This giant 10 feet tall and 18 feet across arachnid sculpture created by French artist Louise Bourgeois in 1996. It’s one of four giant spider sculptures that were auctioned off in New York over the last week

The giant sculpture was previously owned by Fundacao Itau of Brazil for more than two decades before being auctioned off to an unidentified buyer last Thursday. Head of Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction in New York, Kelsey Leonard, said that to see the sculpture “make both a record-breaking price for Louise Bourgeois and also become the most valuable sculpture ever made by a female artist is a truly special moment.

Bourgeois, who died in 2010 at age 98, didn’t begin creating her spiders until she was in her 80s, but the towering creatures have become her best-known works. Sculptures from the series are on prominent display at many of the world’s leading museums, including the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Dia Beacon in New York and Tate Modern in London.