Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis
Although none of the most highly touted lots at Sotheby’s evening sale of Impressionist and Modern art last night exceeded their estimates, there were plenty of sleeper hits. Here are a few of the lots that exceeded Sotheby’s expectations by significant margins.
Carol Vogel gives the rundown on last night’s “lackluster” Impressionist and Modern evening sale at Sotheby’s London. The $165.2 million sale did fall within its estimate of $148.4 million to $217.5 million, and the most highly anticipated lot, a self-portrait by Manet did achieve a new record for the artist ($33 million), but the tone of Vogel’s article indicates that the sale (and the Manet) failed to wow.
She notes that there was only bidder chasing the Manet and quotes dealer Richard Feigen who suggests that the Manet failed to go over estimate because it may be over the heads of many members of the art-buying public:
“The Manet put a damper on the evening,” said Richard L. Feigen, another New York dealer, adding that the painting was not well suited to being sold at auction. “It was a great picture, but he’s not an auction artist,” Mr. Feigen said; the work was too intellectual to have the commercial appeal of paintings and sculptures by Picasso, Giacometti and Modigliani that have brought record-breaking prices over the last few months.
A Lackluster Art Auction in London (The New York Times)
Beijing’s leading auction house China Guardian just wrapped up their 22nd edition of quarterly auctions: 2300 works of art sold (over three days) for $311 million. As Colin Gleadell notes in his roundup of market news, that puts China Guardian ahead of Western rivals Christie’s and Sotheby’s:
Beijing auctioneers China Guardian has thrown down the gauntlet to Sotheby’s and Christie’s highly successful Asian operations in Hong Kong with a $311 million series of art and antiques sales, placing them ahead of the Western auctioneers ($256 million and $293 million respectively) at the end of the spring auction series.
Art market news: Dealers at Art Basel sell fast (The Telegraph)
Yesterday evening’s sale of photographs from the Polaroid collection totaled $7,197,438 at Sotheby’s New York. Every single lot sold, many above estimate. Here are some of the highlights:
At first glance, today’s evening sale of Russian paintings at Sotheby’s London appears to have yielded lackluster results as only 16 of the 26 paintings offered found buyers. However, the high buy-in rate was redeemed by the relatively large number of works that sold for hammer prices above their estimates.
Among the sale’s estimate-topping highlights were Sergei Vinogradov’s View of Ai-petri, Crimea, which more than tripled its high estimate, selling for a final price of £623,650 and Alexander Iacovleff’s Titi and Naranghe, which exceeded the house’s expectations by 45%, bringing a final price of £2,505,250. In the end, the sale total fell just above the low end of the house’s pre-sale estimate, grossing £10.5 million
For more analysis of the Russian art market, see the latest edition of The ART Report.
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