Gagosian scores a Rembrandt cheaply; AI gets a little better at predicting prices

This commentary by Marion Maneker is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.)

Christie’s London PWC Evening = £79.2m

With David Hockney’s double portrait of Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott selling for just under $50m, Christie’s was able to realize almost $375m for the entire Ebsworth collection. That sale is significant because it moves the collection from a most likely loss against the massive guarantee Christie’s is said to have offered to a probable gain for the auction house. Such a high-risk endeavor is rarely taken. But the Ebsworth gamble came just after Christie’s much larger bet on the Rockefeller estate also paid off by showing a profit for the house.

The question is whether the performance against such priced-to-perfection guarantees will whet either auction house for more risk in the seasons to come as the business shifts into a phase driven by estates and collections than by deal-making.