Christie's posts a big London Imp-Mod Evening despite top lot stumble; Poons breaks market cocoon; Phillips New Now = $5.2m; 60% of sold lots go above estimates in Sotheby's £21m Imp-Mod Day sale

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Christie’s London Imp-Mod Evening Sales = £165.6m

The Evening sales at Christie’s were a mixed bag. The single-owner sale of the Wallace brothers collection performed poorly against overly ambitious estimates. Only three of those lots made the top ten for the evening; and only Renoir’s Sentier dans le bois outperforming estimates. Record prices for Caillebotte and Signac were the star performers from the various owner sale that performed far better. In the Surrealism sale, Magritte was the new Andy Warhol, in the words of one collector watching on an iPad in an airport terminal.