Results: Christi's London Evening Old Master Sale

The results are in for the Christie's London Old Master evening sale.  The results appear to be solid by not extraordinary.  The sale offered 67 lots with 47 selling for a respectable but not great 70% sell through rate. The sale totaled $64.3 million with the top lot being a Peter Paul Rubens (see image) which sold for $13.66 million including buyers premium against an estimate of $12.2 million to about $18.2 million.

Twelve of the lots offered sold for over $1 million. Christie's official release called the sale steady and balanced. Most of the top end lots fell between the pre sale estimates, with a few just breaking over the high estimate. None of the offered lots really broke out of the realm of expectations. The top ten buyers were all listed as anonymous.

Christies stated about the sale

Richard Knight, International co-Head, and Paul Raison, Head of Old Masters and 19th Century Art at Christie’s London stated: “The market for classical European art continues to produce solid results. This evening's sale took place in a packed saleroom and saw balanced, steady bidding, realising the 3rd highest ever total for the category at Christie's in London. There was a strong demand for works of the highest quality and for only the second time at Christie's in London, a sale in this category sold 10 works for over £1 million. Our decision to offer Old Masters alongside 19th Century Art and Works on Paper continues to reap benefits, as we see ever-increasing levels of cross-over buying between established collectors of these traditional categories. We are delighted with the record price of £5.6 million achieved for Pencz’s Portrait of Sigismund Baldinger, a museum-quality work of great importance and rarity. Equally strong prices were achieved for exceptional works by Rubens and Il Guercino tonight, marking a very positive start to this week’s ongoing sales of items from the Spencer Collections.”