The report on Sotheby's October 28th Livestream Evening sale includes the seller of a Magritte and two Picassos and the details of the van Gogh. It 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.)

Following Sotheby’s $142.8 million contemporary art sales, all 36 lots in the Impressionist & Modern Art sale sold for $141 million against an estimate of $111 million to $160 million after the withdrawal of 3 lots. For those who think the Impressionist and Modern market is in decline, the average lot price from the samplings provided was not very different from the contemporary art sold earlier. In fact, the high end did rather better.

Here, the major lots going into the sale were two lifetime cast bronze sculptures by Alberto Giacometti estimated at $20 million–$30 million and $12 million–$18 million. Both were being sold by Revlon chief Ron Perelman, and both were guaranteed. The cheaper of the two was withdrawn because it had been sold privately before the sale, while the other, Femme Leoni (1947) from an edition of six, sold for $25.9 million (prices include the buyer’s premium, estimates do not). Six-and-a-half-foot casts of Femme Leoni are rare on the market. Number 5 from the edition of 6 sold fifteen years ago for $8.4 million during a Christie’s New York Impressionist and modern art sale. Perelman’s was number 3 from the edition, and sold to an Asian buyer for a mid-estimate $25.9 million.

After a flurry of additional third-party guarantees were announced before the sale, it turned out that Sotheby’s had covered the ground on more than half the lots. In addition, 23 lots had their reserves lowered sufficiently to allow that many winning bids below estimate. Result? A well-managed crisis and a 100 percent sell-through.