Osman Hamdi Bey makes 10x the estimate at Bonhams in London; Martin Wong follows suit in New York; ARTBnk has some predictions for Christie’s mid-season sale.

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Osman Hamdi Bey Sells for £6.3m in London

The Turkish “Orientalist” Osman Hamdi Bey achieved a surprise record price at Bonhams’s 19th Century paintings sale in London today. Young Woman Reading sold for £6.315m against an estimate of £600,000-800,000. Three more works by Austrian painter Ludwig Deutsch, were also the subject of fierce bidding.

• The Qanun Player sold for £1,167,000 (£300-500k)
• The Connoisseur sold for £337,563. (£150-250k)
• The Goza Smoker sold for £1,143,000 (£120-180k)

These four works made up the bulk of the sale’s £10.97m total.

Martin Wong’s 10 Brooklyn Storefronts Makes Surprise $884k at Sotheby’s Contemporary Curated

London wasn’t the only venue for 10x sales against estimates today. In Sotheby’s Contemporary Curated sale, this Martin Wong work composed of 10 canvases, all 18 inches tall, arranged like storefronts was estimated at $60-80k. The 1985 work by an artist who died of AIDS in 1999 may be an anomaly. Or it may be a signal.

ARTBnk Takes a Stab at Predicting Auction Prices

ARTBnk has put together some more predictions for tomorrow’s sale at Christie’s. The Artificial-Intelligence powered valuation system is still working out the kinks but in the interest of keeping an eye on developments in this technology, we thought it would be helpful for everyone to be alerted to some of their predictions for potential out-performance:

Lot 8 Ruscha 3 Forks est. $400k; prediction $982k

Lot 124 Sam Francis Summer II est $100k; prediction $267k

Lot 138 Ellsworth Kelly Burdock est $35k; prediction $163k

Lot 141 Richard Diebenkorn Untitled est $200k; prediction $404k

Lot 161 Hans Hoffmann Carnival est $60k; prediction $202k

Lot 189 Eric Fischl Rose est $30k; prediction $98k

Lot 224 Franz Kline Untitled Series No. II est $30k; prediction $185k

Lot 348 KAWS M5 est $50k; prediction $424k