Sotheby’s Imp/Mod Sale Subdued but Satisfactory

NEW YORK—If Tuesday night’s sale at Christie’s was something of a parson’s egg, then the trend continued at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern sale last night. On the one hand there were the headline-grabbing record-setters: The cover lot, and anticipated top-seller, Leger’s Étude pour “La femme en Bleu,” performed well (though still well within its estimate) when it fetched $39,241,000, an auction record for the artist (the buyer, according to the New York Times, was Zurich dealer Doris Ammann); and Munch’s brightly colored Girls on a Bridge made $30,841,000 (against an estimated $24–28 million), also an auction record for the artist. Giacometti’s Portrait de Caroline set a record for his paintings at $14,601,000 (est. $10–15 million). And there was at least one pleasant surprise. Matisse’s Le Geranium (est. $2.5–3.5 million) climbed way above expectation in the way that a lot can only when a bidder (Acquavella gallery, in this case) has made up their mind that they’re going to get it no matter what. It eventually went for $9,561,000, a figure that was greeted in the room by a ripple of applause that seemed to reflect surprise and relief in equal measure.

On the other hand, of the well-manicured sale’s scheduled 53, one (a Gauguin) was withdrawn without explanation and 11 were bought in, including: a Picasso that had been estimated at $4–6 million, a Degas sculpture, a Pissarro, and another Leger, against which Sotheby’s had given the seller one of their much-discussed guarantees ($12 million, reportedly).

Predictably, Sotheby’s suits would hear no whisper of disappointment. The sale “gave the market exactly what it wanted” according to a clearly relieved Simon Shaw, head of the New York Impressionist and modern department (he said his team had shed “blood, sweat and tears to curate and choreograph” the sale.) He claimed the auction room had been “extremely lively,” but from where I was sitting, I’d say it was rather subdued and more than once a little anxious. According to Lauren Gioia, a vice president in Sotheby's press office, the sale totaled $235,333,000, “well above the low estimate of $203.9 million” (which is a more optimistic way of saying “within estimate” — the high end was $280.1 million — or, less generously, “better than Christie’s did”). “The average lot value,” (an anything-or-nothing statistic, if ever there was one) “was $5.7 million, up significantly from the $3.5 million achieved six months ago in New York and in February in London; and 67 percent of the sale by lot was purchased by Americans, which was quite a satisfying figure given recent uncertainties in the American economy.” Well, in that final detail at least there was a welcome departure from the previous evening’s story: Christie’s sale was dominated by Europeans.

Click on the photo gallery at left to see the auction’s top five lots.