Impressive prices were achieved for other top-tier pieces, including Alberto Giacometti’s 1948 bronze Trois hommes qui marchent I (est. £4–6 million; $7.9–11.9 million), which fetched £9,449,250 ($18.6 million). But there was also an astonishing amount of interest in lesser-quality work, such as Paul Gauguin’s 1885 still life Deux vases de fleurs et un éventail (est. £1.5–2 million; $3–4 million), which sold to a phone bidder for £3,513,250 ($6.9 mil­lion). Even more unpredictably, a record was set for Albert Marquet, hardly a regular in evening sales, when his circa 1906 Fauvist beach scene La plage de Sainte-Adresse (est. £400–600,000; $800,000–1.2 million) made £1,217,250 ($2.4 mil­lion).“What surprised me was how well the second level did,” says the New York dealer David Nash.

The most expensive work of the week after the Monet at Christie’s was Gino Severini’s Futurist Danseuse, 1915 (est. £7–10 million; $13.9–19.8 million), which sold to a phone bidder for £15,049,250 ($29.6 million). It crushed the artist’s previous record, set at Sotheby’s New York in May 1990, when Mare-danzatrice, a 1912–13 masterpiece in oil and sequins on canvas, made $3.6 million.  

“People like colorful, decorative pictures,” says Melanie Clore, Sotheby’s cochairman of Impressionist and modern art worldwide, “and works like the Severini are appealing to a much broader global market.”

"Impressionist & Modern Art" originally appeared in the September 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's September 2008 Table of Contents.