Results: Christie's London Impressionist/Modern Art Evening Sale

The other evening Christie's London showroom held its summer impressionist and modern art evening sale.  According to trade reports the sale was OK, but there was nothing spectacular about it, nor did it contain any of the trophy lots we have come to expect. But, with that in mind, we are still talking about a lot of money changing hands and a lot of expensive art.

The sale offered 44 lots with 37 selling for a respectable sell through rate of 84%.  The sale totaled $100.4 million including buyers premiums with a sold by value rate of 87%.  This was solidly within the pre sale estimates of $82.8 million to  high of $118.8 million.  The top selling lot was by Wassily Kandinsky selling for $21.16 million (see image).  The NY Times reports the same Kandinsky sold in 2008 for $16.8 million.

The NY Times reports on the sale

For the start of the summer auction season here, Christie’s had cobbled together a modest sale of Impressionist and modern art. Still the auction house managed to sell $100.4 million worth of art, above its low estimate of $82.8 million, but not reaching its high of $118.8 million. Of the 44 works on offer, seven failed to find buyers.

After the sale ended, Jussi Pylkkänen, president of Christie’s Europe and the evening’s auctioneer said there were buyers from emerging markets like Asia, Russia and India, “corners of the world we weren’t touching five years ago.’’

Acquiring top quality paintings and sculptures has been difficult for both Chritstie’s and Sotheby’s, which will hold its Impressionist and modern art on Wednesday. The best works are either in museums and not available for sale or secreted away in private homes where collectors, uncertain of the financial markets, are holding onto them. As a result this month both auction houses have relied on the considerable inventory amassed by the Nahmads — the dynasty of dealers with spaces in New York and London — to supply them with many of their priciest works.

The family has been in the hot seat recently. In April, Hillel Nahmad, 34, known as Helly, was charged by federal prosecutors with playing a leading role in a gambling and money-laundering operation that stretched from Kiev and Moscow to Los Angeles and New York, where he is based. Mr. Nahmad has denied these charges and was absent on Tuesday evening, because he had to surrender his passport as part of his bail agreement. But plenty of other family members were there and bidding, including Mr. Nahmad’s father, David, his cousin from London, who is also called Helly, his brother David and his uncle, Ezra. It was the Nahmad’s who owned the Kandinsky, purchased nearly five years ago at a Christie’s sale in New York.

Source: Christie's and the NY Times