Matisse Record Eclipsed at Christie’s

NEW YORK—Considering it earned the second-ever largest auction result, last night’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale at Christie’s was a rather sleepy affair. The grand total of $394,977,200—well below the record $491.5 million earned at Christie’s in last year’s sale—fell right about in the middle of the overall estimate and was helped by the high number of lots on offer (91). Results overall were mixed, with groans at buy-ins far outnumbering the applause after dramatic sales. But the evening’s many impressive figures should put to rest the fears of an imminent market correction that some speculators have predicted since last summer’s subprime mortgage crisis.

The highlight of the evening was the sale of Henri Matisse’s L’Odalisque, harmonie bleue (1937), which culminated in a slow-paced bidding war between a phone bidder and New York dealer Franck Giraud, who was present in the room. In the end the work went to the phone bidder for $33,641,000, far eclipsing the artist’s previous record of $21.7 million.

Records were also set for Camille Pissarro, Paul Signac, and Jean Metzinger; for works on paper by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Fernand Leger, and Otto Dix; and for a painting by Alberto Giacometti.

In total, 74 of the 91 lots sold. Of those, 46 percent went for above the estimate, 47 percent for within estimate, and 7 percent for below. Christie’s reported that about half the buyers were American, with the rest evenly split between Europe and the rest of the world.

Click on the photo gallery at left to read about the sale's top five lots.