Results: Sotheby's London European Paintings

Sotheby's just posted results of its European Paintings sale held in London.  The results are a bit disturbing.  The sale included 5 fresh to market paintings by Vilhelm Hammershoi, and they all did well and were the top 5 selling lots in the sale.

It appears that the paintings which did sell, performed very well, but the issue is the number of paintings that did not sell.  In this sale, more paintings failed to sell than actually sold.

The Sotehby's European sale offered 144 lots with only 70 selling and 74 being bought in.  The is a rather dismal 48.6% buy through rate.  The pre sale estimate totals ranged from a low of $10.59 million to a high of $15.54 million.  The sale totaled $10.51 million including buyers premiums.  So as you can see from the figures, less than half the lots sold were able to come very close to the low estimate for the sale.  Again, those that sold, did well, and the sale sold 64.6% by value.

The top selling lot was Vilhelm Hammershoi, Ida Reading a Letter, 1899, oil on canvas, sold for $2.68 million including buyers premium.  Interesting that the top lot accounted for close to 25% of the sales total.  The sale was a record for the artist at auction as well as for a Danish work of art at auction. The 5 Hammershoi paintings totaled $6.7 million including buyers premium, or nearly 64% of the total sale.

The sale is European Paintings sale is interesting as it shows both the good and the bad of the current market place. It certainly looks like one artist saved this sale for Sotheby's, but I would also think there are many unhappy consignors.

Source: Sotheby's