Signac’s 1907 La Corne d’or (Constantinople), a late Pointilliste view of Istanbul that looks like a tourism poster broken up into color splinters to suit the painter’s theories about the rendition of light, nevertheless climbed to $6.6 million. The next three lots appeared hopeless. Kees Van Dongen’s large portrait of a standing dancer unveiling her charms, unredeemed by remnants of the painter’s Fauvist color scheme, stood no chance of making its estimate of $12 million to $16 million, given the buyers’ sober mood. Sure enough, it fell unsold. Miraculously, an uninspired Camille Pissarro landscape done in 1893 at Éragny in an unsuccessful attempt at Pointillisme managed to fetch $1.3 million. But Près de Vétheuil—a messy daub that was stamped twice with Claude Monet’s signature and made you wonder how on earth the Christie’s specialists could have allowed it to stray into their prestigious evening sale—crashed without triggering any bids.

Luckily, the Monet, dispatched by the auctioneer in a matter of seconds, was followed immediately by the first highly important work of the week. Rodin’s Ève, grand modèle—version sans rocher cast in the large, 68 ⅛ inches high, version by François Rudier in 1897, is a pivotal work representing a transition from the Classical past to modernity. The image of a woman standing in the nude, head bent and arms clasping her chest, goes back to the Bashful Venus of Roman antiquity, while the rough handling of the body and the rugged surface herald 20th-century statuary. The Christie’s piece was the first trial proof cast by Rudier and, as such, the first that would have been approved by Rodin. It is also the biggest of all Rodin’s bronzes. On June 19, 1999, at Sotheby’s London, it had already set a world record for the artist, fetching £4.6 million ($9.1 million). This week, it » raised the record to $19 million, an impressive jump even in melting dollars. The price reflects the inexorable rise of museum-quality works, driven both by a growing awareness that opportunities missed may never recur and by new buyers with a surfeit of cash hunting for trophies.

The impressive performance of Rodin’s Ève was strikingly paralleled by that of Giacometti’s Grande femme debout II. The tall lady was the first in an edition of six cast at the Susse Foundry, in Paris, in 1960, months after the sculptor molded the plaster model, and at almost nine feet high it is bigger by several inches than series I, III and IV. Not least, the sculpture matches to perfection the popular idea of Giacometti’s work, making it what the media like to call an icon. It too set a world record for the artist, raising the bar to $27.5 million, high above the previous $18.5 million paid as recently as May 9, 2007, at Christie’s New York for another bronze, L’homme qui chavire.

An even more revealing record was set moments later, as Monet’s 1873 Le pont du chemin de fer à Argenteuil fetched $41.5 million. Described in words, the work sounds fantastic. It depicts an industrial subject, an avant-garde idea at the time, as noted in the long catalogue entry. More important is its portrayal of springtime: Looking at the white clouds running high up across the pale blue sky and at the rippling water of the river, you almost feel the freshness of the morning breeze. Yet this is far from being Monet’s greatest work. Sadly for new institutions and trophy seekers, not much from this early Impressionist phase of his work remains outside museums, so they must chase the second-tier pieces. It was a stroke of genius on the part of the Nahmad family of dealers to have seen this moment coming long ago. They bought the Monet at Sotheby’s London in November 1988 for a sum then equivalent to $12.4 million. Their releasing the painting this May proves that these experienced professionals had no doubt about the strength injected into the market by a wave of new buyers who, for the moment, happily go along with the estimates given by auction rooms. For the Monet, the estimate “on request,” quoted to me minutes before the sale began, was a flat $35 million, rather than the usual low and high price bracket, as if it were nonnegotiable. Christie’s must have worked hard to see that this estimate was matched. There came only two bids above $35 million, and Christopher Burge’s hammer quickly fell at $37 million, almost as if all parties knew what would happen.