Souren Melikian compares in the New York Times prices from the recent London Impressionist and Modern sales. He finds that under the spectacular numbers for Klimt and Giacometti, prices have stabilized at levels seen before the boom or near the beginning:

• Kees van Dongen’s feeble 1921 portrait of a café society woman in a would-be alluring posture, “The Mauve Stiletto Shoes,” managed to bring a surprising £2.05 million. This leaves well behind the £1.57 million that it brought at Sotheby’s London in February 2005.

• Paul Signac: “Le Jardin du Vert-Galant,” painted around 1928, came up at Sotheby’s New York on May 8, 2002, it brought $724,500. […] This week, the Signac fetched a staggering £1.83 million, equivalent to $2.91 million.

• Auguste Rodin’s “Le Baiser” (The Embrace) in its second reduced version was produced in an edition of more than 65 pieces cast between 1910 and 1918. Christie’s cast seen at Sotheby’s London sale of June 21, 2005, where it had brought £66,000, climbed this week to £433,250.

• Lyonel Feininger, “Locomotive,” spiced with the artist’s typical touch of whimsy, sold, only just, for £1.49 million, thus broadly matching the $2.14 million that it had realized at Sotheby’s New York on Nov. 7, 2006.

• A very good and now very rare cityscape painted by Pissarro in 1901 made £2.5 million. When seen at Sotheby’s New York on May 8, 2002, “The Church of Saint-Jacques at Dieppe, Morning Sunshine” had fetched $2.99 million. Translated into real buying power, this is only slightly less than the dollar equivalent of the price, about $4 million, that it commanded this week.

A Touch of Fame Works Its Magic in Market (New York Times)