Christie's held its fall New York Impressionist and Modern sale on Wed evening, and the results were mixed. The few exceptional pieces sold well, but beyond that, the sale left much to be desired.
The sale offered 69 lots, with 21 being passed for a sell through rate of 70%. The 48 lots which did sell totaled $204.8 million (including buyers premiums), which represent an 80% sale by value. The top selling lot was by Monet, selling for$43.76 million including buyers premium against an estimate of $30/$50 million. The next highest lot was by Wassily Kandinsky, selling for $23.04 million including buyers premium against an estimate of $20/$30 million. Most of the top ten sold within the pre sale estimates, with a few going for above the high estimates but none really jumped far above the high estimate. The top ten sales accounted for over 60% of the total sales results, showing a weakness beyond the top pieces.
As usual, I would also like to see the financial analysis for the paintings before passing judgment on the sale.
The Wall Street Journal reports on the sale
Source: Christie's and the Wall Street Journal
Despite these heady prices, there was an unmistakable damper to Christie's $205 million evening sale of Impressionist and modern art—a total that fell just shy of its $209.2 million expectations and saw 21 of its 69 offerings go unsold. Dealers said the sale was padded with too many ho-hum examples at a time when collectors are holding out for masterpieces.
One of the biggest casualties was a Picasso bronze sculpture of a rooster, "Coq," that was priced to sell for $10 million but garnered no bids. Paintings by Marc Chagall and Lyonel Feininger that were each estimated to sell for at least $6 million also failed to find takers. Several other works by Alberto Giacometti and Tamara de Lempicka sold to collectors who only had to place a single bid to win.
On the other hand, bidders seemed willing to splurge whenever they spotted something that appeared to be a safe bet: The 10 priciest artworks in Christie's sale accounted for 69%, or $141 million, of the sale's entire total.
Steven Murphy, Christie's chief executive, said such top-heavy concentration proves collectors "will still go for the masterpieces, but anything that ranks below that has to be fresh to the market or special to get its price."
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