Results: Sotheby's London IMP/MOD Evening Sale

What a difference a day makes.  After the excellent evening sale of IMP/MOD art at Chrisite's it was Sotheby's turn, and it did not turn out nearly as well as expected.  I would say expectations were high after the excellent evening sale results at Christie's, but given perhaps a bit lower quality, the sale Sotheby's IMP/MOD evening sale suffered.

The sale offered 53 lots with 41 selling for a respectable 76.9% sell through rate.  34 lots sold for over $1 million. The sale totaled $125.5 million (including buyers premium) which was just above the low estimate of the full sale.  The auction sold only a fair 76% by value.  Again decent, but not exceptional by any stretch of the imagination.  By comparison, the Christie's sale sold 86% of the offered lots and a very strong 93% by value based upon the pre sale estimates. The pre sale total estimate for the Sothebgy's evening sale was $122.5 million to $176.2.

The top selling lot was Claude Monet’s  L’Entreé de Giverny en Hiver which sold for  $13.07 million (including buyers premium) against a pre sale estimate of $7.13 million to $10.3 million (see image). Sotheby's stated it was an auction record for a snowscape by Monet. Three of the top ten pieces were purchased by private European collectors and the other 7 were noted as anonymous.

Sotheby's briefly stated on the sale

Commenting on the sale, Helena Newman, Chairman, Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art, Europe, commented: “Tonight we saw global bidding across the sale, with avid collectors competing for museum quality and rare works.  There was strong competition for exceptional paintings, notably for Claude Monet, Ernest Ludwig Kirchner and Georges Braque. As we have seen in our recent international auctions, we continued to see the enduring appeal of works that are fresh to the market and are of exceptional quality.”