The February sales, 2009’s first major test of the art market, could set the tone for the rest of the year, and the auction houses are awaiting the outcome tensely. Already, they have lowered estimates, and both Christie’s and Sotheby’s are presenting fewer lots.

After the disappointing November auctions in New York, Sotheby’s wanted to put together "a well-edited sale with estimates attractively pitched at this market level. We were not expecting to be able to put together a huge blockbuster sale," says the firm’s Impressionist and Modern expert Helena Newman, who adds that the pound’s historic low against the euro in December, when consignments were being finalized, made it harder to pitch to European and U.S. vendors. On the upside, she notes that the pound’s weakness could make estimates in the currency attractive to global buyers and so "work in the house’s favor when it comes to selling."

In Sotheby’s Imp/mod sale, the first of the two-week season, the house has an important and rare-to-market Amedeo Modigliani. Caryatide, 1913 (est. £6-8 million; $8.8-11.8 million) — one of the artist’s six known full-figure treatments of the subject, three of which are in museums — last appeared in October 1980 at Sotheby’s New York, where it brought $260,000. Other highlights include works by two Viennese masters: Egon Schieles watercolor-and-charcoal Self-Portrait, 1910, below (est. £500-600,000; $733-879,000), and Oskar Kokoschka ’s Istanbul I, 1929 (est. £1.2-1.8 million; $1.7-2.6 million), part of a series of cityscapes by the artist. Sotheby’s is also offering a late René Magritte, Souvenir de voyage, 1958, which depicts the Leaning Tower of Pisa supported by a feather (est. £400-600,000; $586-879,000), and André Derains color-infused Fauvist landscape Environs de Collioure, 1905 (est. £1.4-1.8 million; $2-2.6 million).

Despite the economic slowdown, Christie’s managed to snag some pricey property for its Imp/mod evening event. Claude Monets Dans la prairie, 1876 (est. in the region of £15 million; $22 million) — which portrays the artist’s wife, Camille, wearing a festive hat and reclining in a flower-filled Argenteuil meadow — has made several auction appearances, most recently in November 1999 at Sotheby’s New York, where it realized $15.4 million, and before that in June 1988, when it fetched a then-record £14.3 million ($25.4 million) at Sotheby’s. The sale contains two other museum-quality pieces: L’Abandon (Les Deux amies), an 1895 brothel scene by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (est. £5-7 million; $7.3-10.2 million), which last sold in June 1972 at Sotheby’s London for £150,000 ($382,500), and Les Couturières, douard Vuillards startlingly avant-garde 1890 interior showing his mother and sister sewing corsets for the family’s business. The latter, which was on loan for a year at London’s National Gallery, carries an estimate of £5.5 million to £7.5 million ($8-11 million), which reflects the artist record $7,993,000 earned by Fillettes se promenant, 1891, at Christie’s New York last May. Among other notable lots are a second Monet, his La Promenade d’Argenteuil, 1872 (est. £3.5-5 million; $5-7.3 million), and the disarmingly modern Les Dindons, Pont-Aven, left, Paul Gauguins 1888 Breton landscape with a pair of wild turkeys (est. £2-3 million; $2.9-4.4 million).

The Christie’s Impressionist and modern director Giovanna Bertazzoni declares herself "cautiously optimistic" about the coming auction. Given the "challenging" combination of a weaker market and falling pound, "we had to take the whole consignment process with clients to a new level this season," says the specialist, who wooed potential consignors by inviting them to tour Yves Saint Laurent’s and Pierre Bergé’s art-and-objet-stuffed Rive Gauche duplex, the contents of which are being sold at Christie’s and Pierre Bergé & Associés in Paris later this month. "We have a good series of pictures to offer," says Bertazzoni. How the market will react and what’s going to happen, we just don’t know."

That uncertainty looms even larger over the contemporary sales, whose five seasons of escalating prices, lavish guarantees for sellers and salesroom buyer bravado have come to an end. "We are convincing consignors to be more realistic with expectations in terms of estimates," explains the Sotheby’s London contemporary specialist Alexander Branczik. "We are pricing things to sell."

One of the main draws of the Sotheby’s contemporary sale is Jeff Koonss Stacked, 1988 (est. £ 2.2-3.2 million; $3.2-4.7 million), a polychrome wood sculpture, from his acclaimed "Banality" series, of a vertical menagerie of barnyard animals, which last sold in May 1997 at Sotheby’s New York for $250,000. Also going under the hammer are Bridget Rileys wavy and rhythmic optical abstraction Gala, 1974, below (est. £600-800,000; $879,000-1.2 million), and Roy Lichtensteins Two Figures, Indian, 1979 (est. £1.8-2.5 million; $2.6-3.7 million), from the late artist’s relatively little known series "Amerind/Surreal," which was influenced by the Shinnecock Indian reservation near his Southampton, Long Island, home.

"We are tailoring our sale a lot more to material that we think people want at the moment and that they are prepared to pay for," explains Branczik.

It’s hard to believe that just a year ago, the Sotheby’s contemporary evening auction earned a whopping £95,030,000 ($189,424,299), the highest total for a European sale in the category. Such numbers at either house are unattainable now. "Obviously, it’s a different world than what it was six months ago," says Pilar Ordovas, the head of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s London. "The February sales will be much smaller, and our intention is to keep them that way so we can concentrate on securing property for the larger spring and summer sales."

Nevertheless, Christie’s has lined up some major postwar pieces, including Alberto Burris brawny mixed-media abstraction Combustione plastica, 1956 (est. £800,000-1.2 million; $1.2-1.7 million), and Bridget Riley’s Aurulum, 1978 (est. £400-600,000; $586-$879,000), a shape-shifting abstraction in acrylic on linen that’s somewhat smaller than the Riley on the block at Sotheby’s. The house also has its own Koons: Monkeys, 2003, above, a large, wild painting of balloon sculptures swinging across a Photoshop background (est. £1.4-2 million; $2-2.9 million). It sold in the $500,000 range when it was first exhibited, in 2003 at the Sonnabend Gallery, in New York.

Christie’s pushed its contemporary sale a week later, to follow Sotheby’s move last year, only to have its archrival revert to the old schedule. For U.S. buyers accustomed to back-to-back events in London, Phillips de Pury & Companys contemporary sale takes place the next evening. The lineup there includes Martin Kippenbergers oil, silkscreen and Plexiglas on canvas Portrait of Paul Schreber, 1994 (est. £400-600,000; $586-879,000), and Mark Grotjahns Pink Butterfly, 2002 (est. £200-300,000; $293-440,000).

Speaking to this season’s mood, and echoing her Sotheby’s colleagues, Christie’s Ordovas emphasizes, "It is our intention to have a tightly edited sale, with property totally fresh to the market and correctly estimated to insure we are successful." In the current market, one cannot hope for much more.

"London Sales Preview" originally appeared in the February 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's February 2009 Table of Contents.