Results: Sotheby's London Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale

On Wednesday evening Sotheby's London held its impressionist and modern sale.  The sale appears to have done well, totaling out just below the high sale estimate total.  The sale totaled $166 million including buyers premiums against an estimate range of $120 million to $170 million (based on GBP conversion to USD).  The sale offered 71 lots with 58 selling for a respectable buy through rate of 81.7%.  The sold by value rate was a strong 90.8% showing those paintings that did sell, did well.

The top selling lot was by Clauide Monet, Le Palais Contarini (1908) selling for $30.83 million against a pre sale estimate of $23.21 million to $30.93 million.

The NY Times reported there were bidders from 33 countries vying for the lots, showing the width geographic collector interest in the sale.

The NY Times reported on the sale

Abstract canvases were big sellers at the New York auctions in May, and at Sotheby’s here, one of Mondrian’s classic austere works — the 1927 “Composition With Red, Yellow and Blue,” from an unidentified European collector — brought $14.5 million. David Norman, a Sotheby’s expert based in New York, took the winning bid on behalf of a telephone client, beating out five other contenders. The price was over its high $9.2 million estimate.

While a colorful 1909 Kandinsky was Christie’s priciest work, selling for $21.1 million, works by the artist at Sotheby’s brought mixed results. “Studie für Herbstlandschaft mit Booten,” a 1908 landscape, sold for nearly $10 million, over its high $7.5 million estimate. But a later painting by the artist, “Sans Titre” from 1941, failed to sell.

The auction also featured a number of works by Picasso of varying mediums and periods. “L’étreinte” — a 1971 drawing, executed in crayon and pencil on red paper, depicting one of the artist’s musketeers embroiled in a passionate sexual encounter — was snapped up by a telephone bidder for $4.8 million, well above its high $3 million estimate. The drawing had belonged to Stanley J. Seeger, a famously reclusive American collector who lived in London before his death in 2011 and was well known for his large and luscious Picasso holdings. Mr. Seeger had bought “L’étreinte” at Christie’s in New York in 2004 for nearly $1.5 million.

Another Picasso drawing that was once owned by Mr. Seeger, “Guitare Sur Une Table,” from 1912, had also belonged to Nelson A. Rockefeller. It brought $567,784, above its $378,000 high estimate, and had last been at auction at Sotheby’s in New York in 2004, where it made $400,000.

When a Surrealist canvas is good, buyers know it. Six bidders went after “L’Idée,” Magritte’s seminal 1966 image of a green apple suspended in air above the image of a suited man, which ended up selling for $7.1 million. It had been estimated to fetch $2.7 million to $3.7 million.

“It’s a super-selective but strong market,” said Mary Hoeveler, a New York art adviser who tried to buy several works on behalf of a client but only managed to get a 1965 watercolor by Miro for $906,105.

Source: Sotheby's and the NY Times