
A better illustration of the way the Warhol sales played out late last year might be the odd coincidence of there being eight examples of Warhol’s Jackie Kennedy portraits on offer during the same week. Six of those Jackies came from a large collection Christie’s presented where the provenance was directly from the artist.
Curiously, all of those works sold for different prices but at or near the same hammer ratio. That is, each of the Christie’s works sold for a hammer ratio around 80% of the low estimate, with a few variations lower.
The two Jackies sold by Sotheby’s and Bonhams, on the other hand, both exceeded the low estimates. Bonhams work (below) showed the greatest level of competition.