This Francis Picabia work from 1907 topped Sotheby’s day sale lots of Impressionist and Modern art. A Diego Giacometti table actually sold for ten-times the estimate to make $3.8m and a Chaim Soutine painting from Taubman collection was right behind the Picabia at $1.8m.
More telling, the sale represented a 27% drop from last year’s same event which took in $53.3m. As big as the reduction in sales volume is, it actually represents a smaller percentage drop than the broader market.
