The Highest Total in Europe for an Impressionist/Modern sale; 81% of lots sold

Such is the strange nature of the press coverage of the art market that a solid sale with 81% sell-through can be reported with doubts.

The top end of the Impressionist market remains strong. Christie’s sale confirms what experts have been saying for several years now: the market likes quality. And it should be added that quality includes provenance. But the important statistic to emerge from last night’s sale was the weighting of the top ten lots in the total. At 86,932,500 pounds, the top ten lots represented 60% of the total sale value.

The average price for the Evening sale was 2,188,492 pounds, a figure comparable with the numbers last seen in New York in May where Christie’s had an average lot value of $6.3 million. The median price in last night’s sale was 1,060,450 pounds against a median of $3 million in New York.