Results: Christie's London Old Master Sale & the Paris Lanvin Sale

Scott Reyburn of Bloomberg reports on the Christie's Old Master sale. As expected for Old Masters, the sale performed much better than most of the recent sales held in London and New York. The sale generated $21.54 million dollars against a low estimate total of $22.86 million, with 80% of the 44 lots selling. According to Reyburn, last years Christie's sale grossed $27.55 million from a 70 lot sale with only 54% selling.

Reyburn states The sale may indicate demand is more robust for older works than their modern and contemporary equivalents, dealers said. Art auctions in London, Hong Kong and New York have missed presale estimates as buyers hesitate to splurge during recession.

“I was surprised how well it did,” said the New York-based dealer Anthony Crichton-Stuart, in an interview after the auction. “There was an expectation that there would be the same fall-out in the Old Master market as there was in modern and contemporary. But it didn’t happen.” Prices hadn’t risen to the “dizzying heights” of more recent works, he said.

In the Old-Master market, where works have been resold many times, freshly discovered pictures generate the most competition.“A lot of traditional Old Master collectors came up for air for this sale,” said Paul Raison, head of Christie’s Old-Master picture department in London, in an interview. “There was a lot of private European bidding. The weakness of the pound against the Euro played a part.”

Raison said there was less bidding from U.S. and Russian clients than there had been in previous sales, without specifying where the buyers are from.

The good news is the sale sold 80% of the offered lots, and while bidding remained toward the low end of the estimates, it was at least close to those estimates. The sale results show a little bit of hope with perhaps a little bit of balance and stability. I would say that is a positive step, especially with the daily bad news being delivered by the news services on the economy every day.

I will post on the Sotheby's Old Master sale as soon as there are reports.

The Lanvin Sale.

Now, unfortunately after the good news we move on to Monday's specialty sale in Pairs of the collection of modern and impressionist paintings of fashion designer Jeanne Lanvin. The recent past of modern and impressionist painting sales seems to have repeated itself on Monday, December 1st at Chrisitie's in Paris. The Washington Post is reporting results fell far short of pre sale estimates.

The article states Christie's auction house said in a statement it raised euro7.67 million ($9.67 million) at its evening sale of works by artists including Pablo Picasso and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It had originally valued the collection at euro20 million ($25.2 million).

Only 23 of the 31 lots were sold, it said. Among the paintings that failed to find a buyer was Renoir's "The Tapestry in the Park (Presumed Portrait of Camille Monet)," which had been estimated at euro2.5 million ($3.15 million) to euro3.5 million ($4.41 million).

Further works by artists including Edgar Degas, Eugene Boudin and Camille Pissarro also stayed on the shelf.

"Unsold works are the reflection of estimates considered excessive by the current market, while those paintings with reasonable estimates drew great interest from international collectors," Anika Guntrum, head of Christie's Impressionist and Modern Art department, said in the statement.

To read the Washington Post article on the Lanvin sale, click HERE. I guess we have to take the good with the bad. But, at least there is some good to report.