What a difference a day makes. After the very poor showing at Chrisite's it was Sotheby's turn with their Impressionist and Modern evening sale in NYC. The difference in the two sales is pretty incredible. It will be interesting to see how the individual values of the sale holds up compared to an index such as the Mei Moses art index.
According to some trade sources the Sotehby's sale had more realistic reserves and the pieces were fresher, and the end results were much more in line with pre sale expectations. The sale totaled just under $200 million including buyers premium ($199.8 million). The total fell comfortably with-in the middle range of the pre sale estimate which was $167.5 to $229.8 million.
The sale offered 70 lots and 57 sold for a very respectable 81.4% buy thorugh rate (the Chrisite's sale was at 62%). The sale sold a very nice 87.4% by value (compared to Christie's rather bleak 55%).
The top selling lot was a Gustav Klimt, selling for $40.4 million, against a pre sale estimate posted as "in excess of $25 million".
The NY Times reports
To read the full NY Times review of the Sotheby's sale, click HERE.It has been a week of quick reversals and stark contrasts. On Tuesday night, the Christie’s sale of Impressionist and modern art performed poorly, making Sotheby’s sale seem like a triumph by comparison as paintings by Klimt and Caillebotte, Monet and Giacometti brought prices that far exceeded expectations.
Coming in second had its advantages. Looking at the competition’s results, Sotheby’s experts were able to gauge the market and persuade consignors to lower their reserves (the secret minimums generally agreed upon by the auction house and the seller). Sotheby’s sale was also filled with fresher material that was more conservatively estimated. And collectors responded. The sale totaled $199.8 million, right in the middle of its $167.5 million to $229.8 million estimate. Of the 70 works on offer, only 13 failed to sell. (Christie’s sale on Tuesday night brought in $140.7 million, far below its $211.9 million low estimate, and ended with 31 out of 82 works unsold.)
The evening’s star work was “Litzlberg on the Attersee,” a colorful Klimt landscape painted around 1914-15 that made $40.4 million. It had been hanging in the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg, Austria, before being returned to George Jorisch, a retired camera store manager from Montreal whose great-uncle and great-aunt had owned it before it was seized during World War II.
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