The New York Times‘s art market reporter has some harsh words for the Phillips de Pury in her story covering the sale:

Phillips, the struggling Chelsea auction house, was offering less-than-stellar examples of trendy names like Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons, making the event seem like an average day sale at Sotheby’s or Christie’s, with prices in the hundreds of thousands rather than millions.

After making the point that Phillips had entered into an arrangement to sell Charles Saatchi’s art, the story goes right back into disparaging the firm’s offerings:

Beyond the dozen or so works he was offering, sellers, dealers and auction house experts said the sale consisted of works that Sotheby’s and Christie’s had rejected or were from dealers in need of quick cash.

The mystery in all of this is not the cutting remarks but the time and effort that the Times and its reporter put into a sale that hardly needed covering.

Phillips de Pury Limps to the Finish with a $7m Total (NY Times)