NEW YORK—Last night’s auction at Christie’s of art and objects collected by the late, legendary dealer Allan Stone, the first in this week’s series of evening sales of contemporary and postwar art, failed to reach its high estimate but did achieve several high prices, reports the New York Times.

Pop paintings by Wayne Thiebaud and crushed car sculptures by John Chamberlain, both artists Stone represented, made record prices, and several works by de Kooning did well, including an untitled abstract painting from 1942 that was the evening’s highest sale, at $5.3 million, just under its low estimate of $6 million. Of 71 lots, all but seven sold, with the auction totaling $52.4 million, under its $59.7 million high estimate.

The auction was “so singular that it could not really serve as an indicator of how the art market is responding to last week’s plunge in stock market prices and disappointing results at Sotheby’s sale of Impressionist works,” reported the Times, but the strong prices were “a confidence builder.”