Art Market Monitor

Who was the impatient Chinese bidder? That’s going to be the question coming out of Sotheby’s successful Impressionist and Modern sale. One buyer working through a Sotheby’s specialist was so anxious to end several bidding wars that he or she instructed the Sotheby’s representative to make larger bids that necessary in an effort to scare off the competition. The Master, Judd Tully, tried to get to the bottom of the issue and came away with a high kill rate for the Chinese marksman:

The bids were taken by Mandarin speaking private client specialist Xing Li, who bought another three works for the client with the paddle number L0057, including another Picasso, Claude a deux ans from 1949 (est. $5-7 million), one of the two so-called ‘irrevocable bid’ properties. It made $6,642,500.

Sotheby’s Scores (ArtInfo.com)

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