The NY Times has a good review of the Sotheby's London Impressionist and Modern sale held Wed evening. The sale was the smallest summer Impressionist Modern auction in over 10 years with only 27 lots offered. Of the 27, only four did not sell for an 85% buy through rate. The top lot was a late Picasso, the Musketeer which sold for $11.5 million, including buyers premium. The sale totaled $55.3 million including buyers premium, and according to the NY Times article, the sale took only 55 minutes to complete. The total sales estimate was $44 - $61 million, so the results were favorable, especially when compared to the sale offered by Christies (especially after reading the blistering review by Souren Melikian in the NY Times which I posted yesterday).
The NY Times article states Still, Sotheby’s, like all the auction houses, had trouble getting material. Ever since the fall, when these companies sharply curtailed their practice of giving sellers generous financial incentives, they have been struggling. With the price of art lower, collectors for the most part don’t want to part with a prized painting, drawing or sculpture unless they have to. By contrast, last year’s equivalent sale at Sotheby’s brought $201.2 million. Capitalizing on the current fashion for late Picassos, created in part by recent exhibitions at the Gagosian Gallery in New York, the National Gallery in London and the Grand Palais in Paris, both Christie’s and Sotheby’s sales this week featured the artist’s images of musketeers holding swords. This theme of swashbuckling men captured Picasso’s imagination during the last years of his life.
To read the NY Times article, click HERE.
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