ART: Focus on Impressionist & Modern Art

Art Research Technologies just issued their newest ART report on the upcoming London Impressionist and Modern art sales.  The report is not overly optimistic on the sector based on previous sales and the property being offered in the upcoming sales.  The sales are offering nearly 700 lots which is about about 20% more than last years sales.  With the increased number of lots the sales are featuring many middle market lots ($50,000 to under $100k) which is an increase of nearly 80% within this sector. As many appraisers are aware, middle market  property in most fine and dec arts sectors is not strong at the moment.  The ART report notes the mid-estimate on a lot is down 21% compared to last Junes.

The Focus On Impressionist and Modern Art report states

Last June,the inconsistent results of the Impressionist and Modern sales at Christie's and Sotheby's caused many to question the degree to which the art market had recovered. Although Christie's set a sales record with its $227-million auction, overall the mid-summer sessions had the lowest sell-through rate of any of the 2010 Imp/Mod sale seasons; about a quarter of the lots were bought in, and a handful of hotly anticipated lots underperformed. A water lilies painting by Claude Monet estimated to bring more than $40 million failed to sell, while one of the week's top lots -- Édouard Manet's self-portrait -- grazed the low end of its estimate.

Since then, the performance of the Imp/Mod category has leveled out. At the last series of sales in London the buy-in rate was down to 17%, with 36% of the lots offered selling above their estimates. Next week, the houses will offer 680 lots -- about as many as they featured in February and 20% more than they offered last June. Although the houses' lineups include a handful of big-ticket items, such as another Monet Nymphéas and an oil painting by Egon Schiele that is expected to break the artist's existing auction record, they are offering more mid-level lots than they did last June: Their catalogues feature about the same number of lots with mid-estimates over $1 million, but the number of lots with mid-estimates between $50,000 and $99,999 has increased by 79%. Overall, the average mid-estimate on a lot this June is down by 21% compared to June 2010.

Click HERE to buy the latest edition of the ART Report.

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