The same may be said of Picasso’s Deux personnages (Marie-Thérèse et sa soeur lisant), dashed off on April 10, 1934. In it, distant memories of the painter’s early Cubist phase combine with a distinct Surrealist touch curiously reflecting awareness of Magritte’s work. Done in a faux naive style with deliberate clumsy touches (notably in the windowpane), the painting has a pale color scheme and a soppy tone uncharacteristic of Picasso’s usually muscular oeuvre. Were it not for the $18 million to $25 million estimate, its price of $18 million would also have been recognized as gigantic.

Let us be honest: There were failures. But, reassuringly, these had more to do with the crass mediocrity of the works left stranded than with market weakness. Did those who bemoaned these casualties give them so much as a passing glance? Who would want an atypical watercolor by Kandinsky in pseudofolkloric Russian style for $2 million to $3 million? Or Deux hommes nus et enfant assis, painted by Picasso on May 21, 1965, in a deliberately silly, clumsy style for over $5 million? It was the painter’s way of thumbing his nose at the bourgeois establishment that this fervent Communist loathed and held in profound contempt.

Such displays of market chutzpah are now doomed. A huge sifting operation is under way. The rejects of past decades currently recycled at auction as demand keeps outdistancing supply do not appeal to those who know art, and no longer find takers among hordes of newcomers playing with art as they did with equities. These have now deserted the auction scene. Prices are gradually reverting to a more plausible level, thereby canceling the rampant inflation of the past two years. Sanity is being restored and this really calls for celebration. "Salesroom Sanity" originally appeared in the January 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's January 2009 Table of Contents.