Results: Christie's YSL Sale Totals $478.65 Million

The final session has ended and the Yves St Laurent sale has totaled an incredible $478.65 million dollars with buyers premium. Earlier estimates for the full sale were around the $380 million area. The YSL sale was held over the past three days with several different sessions. One for Impressionist and Modern, one for Old Master and 19th Century paintings, one for silver, one for 20th century decorative arts, and one for sculpture and one for oriental art. The final total and sales volume is rather amazing. The sale through rates for all sessions were excellent, as were many values being above the estimate ranges. Overall the sale had 689 lots and only 31 failed to sell, for a sell through rate of 96% for the full sale.

The final figures break down as follows:

• Session I, Impressionist and Modern Art, realizing $266 million with 7 world records for art at auction. The top lot being a 1911 Henri Matisse selling at $46.4 million, an auction record.
• Session II, Old Master and 19th Century Paintings and Drawings, with 24 lots, selling 18 for a total of $28.76 million including buyer premiums
• Session III, was the silver session, with 111 lots, all selling. The sale total was $25.73 million
• Session IV was 20th Century decorative arts totaling $76.5 million with world record for most expensive work of 20th Century decorative arts at auction. The session saw 12 world records set for sales at auction 150 lots were offered in this session with 143 selling, a 95% sell through rate.
  
• Session V is sculpture, final details of this session are still pending but appears to be over $28 million
  
• Session VI Asian Objects totaled $54.52 million, wtih 64 lots and only 1 not selling. The high estimate for the session was $31.54 million. The session included with two Qing bronze animal heads bringing $40 million (these two lots alone topping the high estimate the session by nearly $8.5 million). The Chinese government tried to stop the sale of these two lots through the French courts by failed. They have also threatened to sue the purchasers of the Qing bronze animal heads. That did not stop the bidding, as the estimates were $10 million range for each head.
  

What was good to see in this sale was the strong prices for items across the various categories selling. This sale had many excellent items with strong provenance selling at or above the pre sale estimates. This held true for the Modern and Impressionist art, the Old Masters, silver with 111 of 111 lots selling, 20th century decorative arts was very strong as well as the oriental items.

Will this sale kick start other sales, in my opinion, probably not due to the unusually high quality of the items, provenance, size and hype associated with this sale. Many new auction records have been set at this sale, and the sale has to be considered a strong success, especially given the current state of the economy. Even in good times, I am not sure if the sale could have performed better.

That being said, lets take the good news of this sale and enjoy it for a while.