Carol Vogel fingers Alice Walton as the buyer of the Warhol Coke bottle at Christie’s last month, a very substantial sale that got overshadowed by the Francis Bacon also sold that night.
Several dealers and auction-house experts said that Ms. Walton bought Warhol’s “Coca-Cola [3],” for $57.2 million at Christie’s on Nov. 12. That price is more than Ms. Walton has been known to have ever spent at auction.
One of only four paintings of a single Coca-Cola bottle that Warhol made in 1961 and 1962, it was being sold by Jose Mugrabi, the New York dealer, and had been estimated to fetch between $40 million and $60 million.
That Ms. Walton would be the buyer makes sense: Her mission is to build a world-class collection of American art.
