Further evidence that the market remains fundamentally healthy in the midst of the financial tempest came forth at the evening auctions on November 5 and 6 at Christie’s, during which time the Dow Jones dropped by 10 percent. Both sessions were short on substance. Several failures that would have been inevitable under any circumstances offer no lesson other than that complete duds with wild hopes pinned on them are doomed in any case. What does speak eloquently for the market is that this poor context failed to drag down the very few good works.

The November 5 session was particularly weak, despite the ambitious packaging of two collections dispersed that evening. Both were granted the unwarranted honor of separate hardcover catalogues.

The Hillman family collection included just one truly wonderful work: Georges Seurat’s Maison carrée, a black crayon sketch in which a house emerges from the abstract play of light and shadow. Done in the early 1880s in the Pointilliste master’s best black manner, the sketch soared to $1.1 million. Moments later, a brightly colored and very expressive cityscape painted by Jean Dubuffet in 1944 in his naive style realized $3.7 million, a strong price. Like Seurat’s drawing, the Dubuffet sold within the estimate.

Corrections were applied to a number of works that were quite good but had been estimated at a super maximum. Fernand Léger’s Étude pour le modèle nu dans l’atelier, 1912, which is indeed a study on paper, performed very well at $3.3 million — despite what its $3.5 million to $4.5 million estimate might suggest. So did Giorgio de Chirico’s Composition métaphysique, 1914 given its rather rigid handling and very mildly Surrealist tone, as it went for $6.1 million.

Other pictures that were fine, but no more, found takers, a remarkable indication of ongoing health — only the very best work will normally sell in a sick market. Toulouse-Lautrec’s Portrait de Henri Nocq, which sympathetically portrays one of the artist’s Belgian cronies, looks more like a genre picture than the psychological studies of the darker side of human nature typical of the French master at his best. The price, $4.5 million, was reasonable. Some would even call it generous.

Most failures were justified. Manet’s Fillette sur un banc, 1880, left unfinished by the artist, who was probably dissatisfied with it, carried an absurd $12 million to $18 million estimate. It dropped dead in the water.

The works from the Alice Lawrence collection that followed the Hillman family belongings had so little of any significance that Christie’s found it necessary to fit in some Art Deco furniture and objects that looked out of context. The one desirable painting within its range sold brilliantly. Magritte’s L’Empire des lumières, 1947, soared to $3.6 million. Surrealist in mood but devoid of the prankish introduction of absurd details, the view of a house lit up in broad daylight is as good as Magritte can ever be.

The success of Louis Lozowick’s 1922 Pittsburgh delivered a more telling, if less spectacular, bill of good health for the 20th-century painting market. The Russian-born artist, who emigrated to America at age 14, was back in Europe when he painted this Cubist cityscape slightly reminiscent of Lyonel Feininger’s earlier work. While Lozowick is familiar to specialized collectors, he is hardly a celebrity. Pittsburgh could not have done much better than the $386,500 it realized.

One day later, a more significant test took the pulse of the market. Although Christie’s second evening auction, on November 6, was held after the Dow Jones had badly dipped once more, the stock market’s problems did not stop bidders from spending $146.7 million. Interestingly, the buying pattern was in line with the trend observed earlier in the week: Enormous prices were paid for splendid works of a caliber now seen only at distant intervals. A superb Cubist composition painted by Juan Gris in 1915, Livre, pipe et verres, nearly matched its high estimate, as it rose to $20.8 million. Even more surprising, Kandinsky’s Studie zu Improvisation 3, 1909, brought $16.9 million. Reflecting the Russian-born painter’s doctrinal considerations, the haphazard composition, which retains only traces of the figural world, is redeemed by its expressive color scheme. The incomprehensibly high estimate of $15 to $20 million gives the misleading impression that the Kandinsky was only moderately successful, when in fact the price it fetched was huge.