Impressionist & Modern Art

Christie's London

The top lot at Christie’s was Pablo Picasso’s underwhelming "Femme au chapeau" (1938), which fetched £5,732,500 ($11.3 million).

Sotheby's London

A record of £12,340,500 ($24.4 million) was set for Franz Marc at Sotheby’s by his "Weidende Pferde III" (1910).

Christie’s

131 lots offered
£105,372,000 ($207.4 million) sold total
13 percent unsold by value
24 percent unsold by lot

Sotheby’s

76 lots offered
£116,699,900 ($230.5 million) sold total
6.6 percent unsold by value
11.8 percent unsold by lot

Pablo Picasso Alberto Giacometti Egon Schiele Kees van Dongen Alexej Jawlensky Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Franz Marc Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

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Christie’s massive evening sale on February 4, including a session of Surrealist art, was littered with second-rate entries more appropriate to a day sale. Among these was the top lot, Pablo Picasso’s Femme au chapeau, a washed-out 1938 portrait of his mistress Dora Maar (est. $5.1–7 million). The canvas had been bought in at Sotheby’s New York in November 2002 at $3.4 million, against a low estimate of $4 million. This time around a Zurich dealer, bidding on behalf of an Asian client, paid a staggering £5,732,500 ($11.3 million) for it.

Among the few first-class works was Kees van Dongen’s 1910 portrait of an Algerian dancer, L’Ouled Naïl (est. £2.1–3 million; $4.2–6.2 million), purchased by a European collector for an artist’s high of £5,620,500 ($11.1 million). A record was also set for Brücke artist Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, whose 1913 oil of three frolicking nudes, Akte im Freien (Drei badende Frauen) (est. £1–1.5 million; $2.1–3 million), achieved £3,044,500 ($5.9 million).

The evening’s successes were predominantly German and Austrian art, including a trove of eight works on paper by Egon Schiele, consigned by New York’s Neue Galerie. Of the six that sold, the priciest was the provocative Mutter und Kind (“Mother and Child”), from 1910 (est. £1.5–2 million; $3.1–4 million), which went to London dealer Richard Nagy for £2,932,500 ($5.8 million). Zurich dealer Doris Ammann also grabbed a piece of the Schiele action, purchasing Liegende Frau mit roter Hose und stehender weiblicher Akt (“Reclining Woman with Red Trousers and Standing Female Nude”), from 1912 (est. £2–3 million; $4.1–6 million), for £2,484,500 ($4.9 million). Ali Can Ertug, a New York–based Sotheby’s vice president for business development, apparently bidding on behalf of a private client, snatched up another three—among them, the 1914 self-portrait Selbstbildnis, with Liegende Frau on the other side (est. £800,000–1.2 million; $1.7–2.4 million), for £2,036,500 ($4 million).

Europeans, a category that includes Russians, dominated the buying, accounting for 83 percent of sales by lot. They were trailed by U.S. buyers, at a scant 15 percent, and Asians, at just 2 percent. Observers cited currency exchanges and works geared to European tastes for the lopsided breakdown.

Sotheby’s February 5 evening sale, with 45 percent fewer lots and £11.3 million ($22.3 million) more in sales, was the out-and-out winner, despite the fact that international stock markets tumbled that day. It was the firm’s highest-ever result in Europe and its fifth highest worldwide.

Five paintings fetched more than £5 million ($10 million). The most expensive was Franz Marc’s dazzling 1910 Blue Rider landscape, Weidende Pferde 111 (“Grazing Horses iii”) (est. £6–8 million; $12.3–16.4 million). It sold for an artist’s high of £12,340,500 ($24.4 million) to a European collector, underbid by Alan Hobart, of London’s Pyms Gallery. The price eclipsed the artist’s previous record of $20,201,000, set in New York last November for the much larger Waterfall (Women Under a Waterfall) (est. $20–30 million). Another work that came in well above estimate was Alexej von Jawlensky’s vibrant circa 1910 portrait Schokko (Schokko mit Tellerhut) (est. £6.5–8.5 million; $13.3–17.4 million), which sold for £9,428,500 ($18.6 million), also to a European collector. The same painting had made just $8.3 million at Sotheby’s New York in November 2003.

The collector who purchased Schokko had kick-started the evening’s buying spree by nabbing the very first lot: Hermann Max Pechstein’s Zirkus mit Dromedaren (“Circus with Dromedaries”), from circa 1920 (est. £600–900,000; $1.2–1.9 million), for a record £1,924,500 ($3.8 million). He also won Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Gruppe Badender am Strand (“Group of Bathers on the Beach”) (est. £2.7–3.5 million; $5.5–7.2 million) for £4,836,500 ($9.8 million).