Results: Christie's London Old Masters Evening Sale

On July 6th Christie's held its Old Master and British Paintings sale. The sale appears to have been a success with total evening sales of nearly $80 million including buyers premium.  It was the thrid highest total for the category at Christie's in London.  The sale covered 61 lots and sold only 41, which is a 67% sell through rate.  It sold 83% by value, indicating that although there was a large buy in, those lots that did sell, sold well.

If you recall from my post on a preview of the sale from Art Research Technologies, (click HERE to read) the auction houses were bullish on the sales and the high pre sale estimates indicated market strength in the typically subdued old master category.

The top selling lot was George Stubbs' Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath... (see image) which sold for a world auction record for the artist at $35.9 million including buyers premium.  The pre sale estimate for the Stubbs was $31.77 million to $47.66 million (as you can see, the pre sale estimates were indeed aggressive).  Seven of the top ten lots sold for above the high estimate and the other three sold within the estimates.

Bloomberg reported on the sale

Older pictures have traditionally been the auction houses’ highest-grossing category. Modern and contemporary works are now more lucrative: On June 28, Christie’s auction of postwar and living artists’ works made 78.8 million pounds, a record for the company in the U.K. capital.

“I’m surprised that yesterday’s taste is still selling at auction,” the London dealer Edmondo di Robilant said. “Though they might not be performing as well as they were 10 or 20 years ago, they’re still finding buyers, usually at prices that are too high for the trade.”

Stubbs’s 1765 canvas “Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath, With a Trainer, a Stable-Lad, and a Jockey” was bought by a single bid in the room from the New York gallerist Piers Davies Fine Art. Its sale had been ensured by a third party guarantor. Some dealers said the guarantor was Irish racehorse owner John Magnier. A spokesman for Magnier today said that he neither guaranteed nor purchased the painting.

Stubbs’s 6-foot (1.8-meter) canvas, showing a horse that won 27 of the 36 races he entered, was being sold by the Northamptonshire-based Woolavington Collection with an estimate of 20 million pounds to 30 million pounds.

Lord Cowdray, a member of the family that founded media group Pearson Plc (PSON), was another U.K. seller, entering five lots including the 7-foot-high Gainsborough canvas, “Portrait of Mrs. William Villebois.”

Click HERE to read the Bloomberg article.

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