Pop rocker Sting and wife Trudie Styler decided to clean out one of their England homes and the contents earned about £3 million ($4.19 million) at Christie’s London last night. The nine bedroom mansion, dubbed Queen Anne’s Gate, sold for £19 million ($26.52 million) last year.

The Queen Anne’s Gate auction featured 150 items, ranging from a massive Steinway piano that was purchased for £116,500 ($162,634)—it was reportedly used by Sting to compose three hit albums—to several impressive works of modern and contemporary art. It’s not surprising that Sting and Styler have blue-chip taste in art, and own works by post-war standards such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and René Magritte, as well as contemporary artists such as Keith Haring and Moscow-born artist Veronica Smirnoff.

Ben Nicholson, March 55 (ca. 1955).
Photo: Christie’s.

Highlights from the sale included Ben Nicholson’s abstract composition March 55, which sold for £1,022,500 ($1,427,410), nearly three times its pre-sale estimate; a set of 20 Matisse ‘pochoir’ stencils from 1947, which sold for £530,500 ($740,578); a racy black-and-white Haring ink drawing for £146,500 ($204,514); and a 1949 Picasso lithograph, an edition of 50, which sold for £45,000 ($62,820).

The auction also included personal items and high-end furniture, like two Yves Klein tables in pink and blue that sold for £25,000 ($34,900) each; a Line Vautrin circular, embellished mirror for £37,500 ($52,350); and a pair of large, grey sofas with no designer attributed, which sold for £13,125 ($18,323).

Henri Matisse, from “Jazz,” set of 20 (1947).
Photo: Christie’s.