First Night of Sales at Phillips de Pury Brings in $50 million

Evening Sale Well Below Low Estimate

Phillips de Pury launched the London Contemporary week with a 25.7 million pound set of sales. The Evening sale made a hammer price total of 20 million pounds against a 29 million pound low estimate; the companion sale of photographs from the Lewis Kaplan collection pulled in 1.24 million pounds (slightly more than 1 million at the hammer price and just about the high estimate.) With the top ten lots pulling in $28.8 million or 57% of the total for the two sales, the market seems to be echoing the Impressionist and Modern market where the overall values are dominated by a few top lots.

More analysis after the Day Sale results are in, including some rapid gainers.