The next two big scores came about after brisk competition, providing further evidence of the market’s vigor at the very top. Danseuse au repos, a large pastel heightened with gouache and done around 1879, is a quintessential Degas picture, both in subject (a ballet dancer) and in style (the slightly blurred effect takes the drawing as close to Impressionism as the French master ever went). At $37 million, it became the artist’s most expensive work on paper sold at auction.

The third important piece came up seven lots later and could easily have got into trouble. Vampire, painted in 1894 by Edvard Munch, is one of four versions of its subject, a red-haired woman bent over a man’s head with her arms wrapped around his shoulders. The picture is not handled in the painter’s Expressionist manner. However, the fierceness of the subject heralds the violence of Expressionism that came in a decade later, and in today’s market, where major Munchs no longer turn up, that did the trick. Vampire rose to a staggering $38.2 million, proving that works perceived to be of paramount importance are more expensive than they have ever been.

Another telling message about the underlying strength of the art market was delivered by the prices realized for pictures and sculptures that were very good but could not claim to be highly important. Virtually all found takers at 20 to 30 percent below the printed estimates, which Sotheby’s specialists had persuaded consignors to bring down in the days preceding the auction. This was the best news, paradoxical as it may sound. It is far more difficult to sell goods of any kind when prices go down in a crisis, because potential buyers are tempted to hold back in the hope that prices will sink even further. Moreover, if the goods in question are not seen as unique, selling them is yet more problematic. But the scarcity of any high-quality works in the Impressionist and modern category, which becomes more acute all the time, proved more powerful than any mental block induced by the financial turmoil.

A 1913 Juan Gris Cubist composition in oil on paper (later pasted on canvas) did brilliantly at $6.6 million, even if this was about 10 percent below the low estimate — while the strong colors of the picture make it attractive, the composition is awkward. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Bal masqué, 1888, painted in shades of gray, likewise fetched a generous $4.6 million, nearly matching the lower end of the estimate. The costume-ball scene, which lacks color, was a model for an engraved illustration, and this does not place it among Toulouse-Lautrec’s most desirable works.

Even Femme au chapeau bleu garni d’une guirlande, a 1923-24 Picasso pastel from his Neoclassical period, did not do badly at $4.9 million — well below the lower end of the estimate — however disappointed its Japanese consignor might have felt. The woman’s pretty face is marred by unfortunate black chalk strokes on the side of one cheek and by an incomprehensible black smear to the right of the neck.

Sotheby’s pulled off some real stunts that remained unsung by the media, who failed to recognize them because most commentators focus on names instead of looking at the art. The most astonishing feat was the sale of Le tub, a large bronze in high relief "inscribed with the signature Degas," as the catalogue noted. The work was listed as "Numbered 26/f," pointing to the existence of many other casts, and was dated "circa 1921." As the painter died in 1917, Le tub is posthumous. Therefore, the sculptor did not take part in the trimming or the patination of the work, two essential operations in determining the appearance of a bronze. Le tub is legally authentic only because it was cast by permission of the estate holding the copyright. But in artistic terms, it is no more authentic than a copy of the master’s picture would be, with a difference: the posthumous copy of a painting might fetch a few hundred dollars, not $3.8 million, as Le tub did. That the bronze should have gone for so much money says a lot about the market’s ongoing bullishness.

All told, what happened on November 3 at Sotheby’s was a well-ordered and long-overdue price correction, accompanied by some brilliant sales. As will happen in such circumstances, there was one bargain: La Seine à Bougival, signed by Pissarro in 1871. The riverside view is part of the small number of dated works that stake out the early development of Impressionism. Well composed, La Seine à Bougival is painted in vigorous strokes, creating the sketchy effect that would become a hallmark of full-blown Impressionism. The Pissarro cost $1.9 million, roughly 10 percent less than the low estimate. Whoever bought it made a coup, albeit not a surprising one, as subtly nuanced Impressionist art has long been losing ground to pictures with an easy instant impact, whether Expressionist or Surrealist.