The Guardian reports on Sotheby’s Degas statue going the extra mile to ask an accomplished ballerina her opinion of the famous sculpture:

It was the only sculpture Degas exhibited in his lifetime, in wax because he could not afford to have it cast. The portrait of Marie van Goethem, one of the dancers at the Paris Opera who inspired so many of his pastels, a weary figure in wrinkled tights jutting a defiant chin, was seen as shockingly realistic. The wax was found on his death, and cast in bronze five years later: copies are in the Tate, d’Orsay in Paris and Metropolitan in New York.

Yesterday Lily Howes, a 14-year-old dancer from the Royal Ballet, who knows all about weariness after two-hour rehearsal and three-hour performance days as Clara in The Nutcracker at Covent Garden, said: “I think she’s really good - but she’s leaning back a bit too much.”

Bloomberg’s Scott Reyburn reveals Sotheby’s  first major piece for the February sales in London. This Degas statue is an iconic work cuurently owned by John Madjeski, a UK publisher:

“Petite danseuse de quatorze ans” owned by Madejski — one of the U.K.’s wealthiest businessmen — is expected to fetch up to 12 million pounds ($17.6 million), the auction house said in an e-mailed statement today. Its minimum estimate is 9 million pounds.

The 3-foot-high “Little Dancer” is one of an edition of 28 bronze casts made in 1922 after the artist’s death in 1917. The original wax and fabric statue, now in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. was first shown by Degas in Paris at the sixth Impressionist exhibition of 1881.

He bought this particular version of the statue — one of 10 left in private hands — for 5 million pounds at Sotheby’s in London in February 2004, the auction house said. This was the last time a “Petite danseuse” appeared at auction, said Sotheby’s. Since then it has been on display at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, where Madejski sponsored a suite of galleries bearing his name.

So much for art prices returning to 2004 levels. Here’s a work that Sotheby’s hopes will more than double its 2004 price.

Degas Statue Owned by Madejski May Sell for 12 Million Pounds (Bloomberg)

The Washington Post gets into the art market bashing late with a mis-reading of the Jeanne Lanvin sale results. The Associated Press story re-hashes the market fall but then describes a 74% sell through rate as a disappointment. The sale brought in $9.4 million with a Renoir taking top lot honors at just shy of $1.5 million.

The rest of the lots were a neo-classical Picasso that attracted $1.088 million plus Boudin and another Renoir that came in at $996,000.

Paris Auction of Impressionist Work Falls Short (Washington Post)

The Summing Up Has Commenced

Lindsay Pollock looks at the role of guarantees in Christie’s sale:

Christie’s International and Sotheby’s sold about $418 million of art over three nights, below their combined low estimate of $682 million. The total was off about 37 percent from $665 million a year ago, even after Christie’s added an unusual second evening auction. (Tallies for both years omit day sales.) [ . . . ]

The results appear to have been helped by arrangements made prior to the sale. Five of the top 10 lots, including the Kandinsky, were subject to an auctioneer’s saleroom announcement that “parties with a financial interest will be bidding.” These works had effectively been sold weeks or even months before the sale date.

Christie’s had locked in “third-party guarantors,” according to Toby Usnik, Christie’s spokesman. These guarantors, who sometimes are required to place a bid, have been paid a fee to assume Christie’s risk. The guarantor’s compensation includes a portion of the revenues on the sale, whether or not the guarantor is the top bidder, he said.

These sorts of deals have been used over the past few years as the financial side of the auction business has become much more involved and competitive. They had a major impact last night: The five lots with third-party guarantors wound up contributing $63.1 million to the sale, or 43 percent of the $146.7 million total.

Souren Melikian gives the speculators what-for:

Of all the economic sectors, the art market alone is beating a fairly orderly retreat from the wild excesses that characterized it in the last four or five years. The major evening auctions of Impressionist and Modern art that began this week at Sotheby’s on Monday and ended at Christie’s on Thursday delivered two unequivocal messages. First, money is still available in abundance when rarities of stellar importance or, more simply, very beautiful works of art turn up. This is because, unlike the manufacturing sector or financial services, the actors here are driven by desire. And as anyone who ever yearned to acquire a coveted picture or object knows, the fear of missing an opportunity unlikely to come back is powerful enough to overcome awareness of economic difficulties.

The second message should come as a sobering thought to auction house managers who had better respond there and then if they are to avoid big trouble. The waves of newcomers loaded with money and playing the auction field as if works of art were chips in a poker game have vanished, leaving the floor to traditional buyers who know something about the art they chase.

NY Impressionist Sales Fall 37% from 2007 (Bloomberg)

Mixed sales reflect a return to basics and sanity (International Herald Tribune)

The theme of the evening was relief. Midway through the sale, when yet another lot was bid close to the low estimate only to be bought in, the audience let out a groan of frustration to which auctioneer Christopher Burge responded with a genial, “I know.” It was easy for Burge to make light of the 36 passed lots because Christie’s was able to sell their guaranteed lots.

Kandinsky, Gris, Giacometti and several of the Picassos sold. Lindsay Pollock has this quote on Bloomberg:

“There was actually quite a positive mood in the room,” New York private dealer Christopher Eykyn said.

The Master, Judd Tully, has this:

“There’s still a little life left in this market,” said Christie’s CEO Edward Dolman moments after the sale, “and I think that’s what people should be concentrating on.” Of the guaranteed lots, the standout star was Gris’s rare and widely admired Cubist masterpiece from 1915, Livre, pipe et verres, which sold to New York dealer Franck Giraud of Giraud Pissarro Segalot for a record $20,802,500 (est. $12.5–18.5 million).

“It’s a fantastic picture,” said Giraud, moments after the 90-minute sale. “But I was surprised there was competition. It could have been cheaper!” The dealer said that he was bidding on behalf of an American collector “who wanted the picture for a long time and brought it home.” Reflecting a widely held belief among the trade, Giraud added, “It shows that the market is intelligent and there’s a lot of competition for rare things. If it’s a replaceable item, you can wait for another time when it may be cheaper.”

And Carol Vogel this:

The bidders on Thursday were controlled and careful, but Christie’s executives seemed much relieved afterward, having sold the works in which they had large financial stakes. “There’s still a great deal of money left in the art market,” said an optimistic Christopher Burge, Christie’s honorary chairman in America and the evening’s auctioneer. “But we have to look at a new, reduced price level.”

Christie’s Couldn’t Attract Bidders to the Star Lots

Fresh to the market is a common phrase at the auction houses and private collections are usually the best source of works that get called “fresh to the market.” That held true last night at Christie’s–even with the dis-connect between estimates and economic reality–for many of the lower priced lots, especially the Surrealist lots by Magritte and De Chirico. But the big works by Manet and Rothko, which could have carried the evening as they did at Sotheby’s on Monday, didn’t attract bids.

Lindsay Pollock has this:

“There were some wonderful bargains to be had for people who have cash,” said Nash, after the sale. [ . . . ] `Prices are at the levels of two years ago,” said New York dealer David Nash. [ . . . ] Last night’s sale was an addition to the usual calendar, an auction comprised of fresh-to-the-market, but uneven estate material. “In a bull market, they would have got away with this,” said London dealer Guy Jennings, of Theobald Jennings Fine Art. “It was overly ambitious.” Jennings said that when these sales were organized in the summer, it was “a different world” and art prices were better.

The Master, Judd Tully, had these observations:

In total, 41 of the 58 lots offered found buyers for a respectable buy-in rate of 29 percent, but the majority of sold lots went for substantially reduced, and in some cases fire-sale, prices. There were plenty of bargains for those willing to make bids. “I bought exactly what I wanted,” said London dealer Libby Howie, who acquired two works on paper: Pablo Picasso’s pen-and-India-ink drawing Trois Nus (August 5, 1938) for $578,500 (est. $700,000–1,000,000) and Henri Matisse’s Le Modèle for $362,500 (est. $600–900,000). [ . . . ] Long Island dealer David Benrimon acquired three significant works, including two bargain-basement deals: Georges Braque’s Nature morte à la corbeille de fruits for $842,500 (est. $1.2–1.8 million) and Joan Miró’s Femme et oiseau devant le soleil for $2,154,500 (est. $2.5–3.5 million). “Tonight you had great opportunities,” said the dealer. “It’s between 20 and 25 percent below market value,” he added of the works he purchased. [ . . . ] Benrimon’s also acquired Rene Magritte’s gouache-on-paper L’Empire des lumières, for which he paid $3,554,500 (est. $2–3 million), a record price for a work on paper by the artist. Though this was one of the few works to exceed its estimate, the dealer speculated that six months ago, it would be have been worth $4 million. [ . . . ] Another high achiever was Alice Neel’s stunning portrait Robert Smithson, which went to a telephone bidder for $698,500 (est. $300–400,000). The work was chased by at least four bidders, including dealers Jeffrey Deitch, David Zwirner, and the ultimate underbidder, Andrew Fabricant of New York’s Richard Gray Gallery.

(The bad news after the jump.) Read the rest of this entry »

Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Sale: Was That Good or Bad?

At times during last night’s Impressionist and Modern sale at Sotheby’s, one looked out over the packed sale room and wondered: “Why did you people come here tonight?” The room did not bid with much conviction and if the assembled masses were there to get bargains, it should have been their night. Instead, they were spectators watching a drama unfold on the telephones.

It was a long and tiring evening–though not as tense as last year’s troubled sale–that turned out to be better in terms of the overall total than the mood of the room suggested. Lot after lot struggled to reach its low estimate. Many were sold for prices far below the low estimates. Others got tantalizingly close only to pass without a buyer. Even the top lots in the sale, the very lots that carried the sale for the auction house, sold without the usual snappy bidding. Here’s the Master, Judd Tully, on some of the top lots:

The evening’s second highest earner, Edvard Munch’s Vampire sold for $38,162,500 (est. in excess of $30 million) to a telephone bidder; the underbidder was Victoria Gelfand, a Russian-speaking Gagosian director who was sitting next to Larry Gagosian. [ . . . ] “The sale did exceptionally well,” said London dealer Libby Howie, who bought fauve Maurice de Vlaminck’s Le Remorqueur for $3,666,500 (est. $4–6 million) on behalf of a client. “But I wasn’t going to go any higher.”

Carol Vogel covered the less fortunate lots: Read the rest of this entry »

Sotheby’s Brings in $223 Million On the Back of a Few Masterpieces