Results: Sotheby's London Old Master and British Paintings Evening Sale

Sotheby's has concluded its Old Master and British Paintings Evening Sale. The sale included the record breaking Turner, Modern Rome (see image), and was also the top selling lot at $44.9 million. The sale offered 57 lots with 39 selling and 18 bought in. This represented a 68.4 sell through rate. It was about equal (actually a little less than the Christie's sale). The sale totaled $80.86 million including buyers premium.

More than half the sale came from the Turner, which was estimated to sell between $18.25 million and $27.4 million. Even with the record priced Turner, the sale made only 90% by value. Factoring out the Turner, I think the sale fell below expectations. Many of the top ten selling items fell either within or above pre sale expectations.

According to Kelly Crow of the Wall Street Journal, the Getty Museum beat our 5 other serious bidders for the Turner.

Crow states

The artist displayed "Modern Rome" in the Royal Academy that same year he painted it, and sold it to Scottish collector Hugh Munro. In 1878, Mr. Munro's heirs sold it to the 5th Earl of Rosebery. Until this spring, the painting had been on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Scotland. Sotheby's said the seller was one of the earl's heirs.

The sale represents a coup for the Getty, whose Turner holdings currently consist of an 1844 choppy seascape, "Van Tromp, Going About to Please His Masters," and a pair of watercolors.

After the sale, the museum's acting associate director, Thomas Kren, praised the Turner's rarity and "perfect condition." He said he expects the work to be a "cornerstone" of the museum's collection and be as powerful a tourist draw as Vincent van Gogh's "Irises" or Nicolas Poussin's "The Holy Family with the Infant St. John the Baptist and St. Elizabeth."

As far as the price, Mr. Kren said the museum was actually prepared to spend even more to win the work. "We had a bidding limit, but we didn't reach ours this time," he said. "We really wanted this one."

The Turner anchored Sotheby's $80.8 million sale of Old Master and British Paintings in London.

To read the full WSJ article, click HERE.