NEW YORK—The formerly explosive auction market for Indian and Southeast Asian art emitted but a few sparks last week, as a meager trio of sales made $8.7 million — nothing to sniff at in this economy, but still a stark contrast to the category’s total gross of $45 million last March. Christie’s and Sotheby’s reduced not only the number of lots they typically offer during New York’s Asia Week, but also the number of actual sales devoted to the broad sector, which covers more geographical and chronological ground than most auction categories.

Sotheby’s took the most drastic action in redefining their approach by combining its sales of traditional sculpture, artifacts, and painting with its offerings of modern and contemporary art. Last September, the sales were maintained separately, with 117 traditional works of art going for $3.3 million and 126 modern and contemporary lots bringing in $7.9 million. In last week’s hybrid sale on March 18, 139 lots totaled $3.2 million (est. $2.8–4.1 million).

As Zara Porter Hill, the director of the Indian and Southeast Asian department at Sotheby’s, explained in a post-sale press release: “Our strategy for this sale was to put together a tightly edited group of the finest works available, sagely estimated, and we were delighted to see the market respond so positively.”

Hill and her cadre may have been on to something — although the house only managed a sell-through rate of 54.7 percent by lot, it did sell about 73 percent by value — a rate that Christie’s could not top with either of its auctions on March 19 and 20.

Nonetheless, some of Sotheby’s expectations proved unwise. The sale’s biggest disappointment occurred early on, when a brightly colored mandala painting seemed to fade in the tepid salesroom. The richly hued work, which carried an estimate of $150–200,000, never got off the ground. The ambitiously estimated Buddha from a private Swiss collection (est. $80–120,000) that came up a few lots later met a similar fate, failing to sell and setting an uneasy tone for the stone sculptures that followed.

The big-ticket item among the traditional fare was a pair of burnt red manuscript covers intricately painted with scenes of worship, which sold for $110,500 (est. $100–120,000). But the most remarkable price was earned by a modest sculpture from the estate of M. Van Ouwerkerk. The statue of Buddha perched on a lotus and surrounded by bodhisattva was estimated to go for a modest $12–18,000 yet climbed to $98,500. Another small treasure that exceeded expectations was a gilt-copper and polychrome shrine from the 18th century: At $53,125, the Mongolian bling more than doubled its high estimate.

Overall, traditional Indian painting did not perform as well as it did in comparable sales in September, when a 19th-century picchvai of the Shri Nathji temple scored a whopping $314,500 (est. $20–30,000) at Christie’s. Buyers this time around were discriminating when it came to 20 lots of Indian miniature painting from a private German collection, and only two items fared notably well: a circa-1780 picture of two women conversing, which dwarfed its high estimate of $20,000, fetching $50,000; and a more lively watercolor depicting Krishna and other deities celebrating on the banks of the Yamuna River, which brought $31,250 (est. $15–20,000).

The paintings that earned the most were dated from the second half of the 20th century, with seven of the sale’s top 10 prices going to 20th-century Indian masters such as M.F. Husain and F.N. Souza.

The priciest lot, Husain’s textured abstract portrait Untitled (Two women), from the mid-1970s, brought $374,500 against an estimate of $150–200,000. A far more interesting painting by the artist, of wild horses, lurched into the top 10, going for $242,500 (est. $100–150,000). Overall, five out of the 10 works on offer by Husain sold; Krishna with Gopis (2006), an ink and watercolor work on paper done in the palette of a Smurfs cartoon, was his lowest earner, realizing $18,750 (est. $12,000–18,000).