Results: Sotheby's NY American Painting Sale

Last week Sotheby's held its American Painting Sale. The sale generated $15.3 million in sales, with only two works selling for over a $1 million. They were the Childe Hassam (noted in the other post of today, regarding Halsey Minor) and a Grandma Moses, Country Fair, dated 1950, which sold for $1.08 million including buyers premium (see image). There were 107 lots offered for sale with 66 selling for a 61.7% buy through rate. The pre sale estimate range was $17 - $25 million, although nearly 38% of the art failed to sell, those that did, seemed to have done reasonably well.

Art Info stated about the sale Many of the buyers, however, did not show their faces on the day of the sale. “No one came to town,” notes Eli Wilner, the antique frame dealer who loaned nearly 50 frames to the Christie’s and Sotheby’s sessions and who did attend the sales. In some cases, absentee bidders even seemed to be rewarded for not being there. For instance, the buyer of Mary Cassatt’s study Two Mothers and a Child in a Boat (1910) got it for $25,000, well under its $30,000 low estimate. And another no-show really hit the jackpot, paying just $338,500 for a rather somber portrait of the 19th-century philanthropist famous for his work in education reform, Robert C. Ogden, that was estimated to go for between $400,000 and $600,000. The work was of three by Thomas Eakins being deaccessioned by Washington, D.C.’s Hirshhorn Museum. One, Study for William Rush and His Model (circa 1908), made $122,500 (est. $80–120,000). A third did not sell.