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).

Work by Akbar Padamsee also proved popular. His smoky nude from 1960 brought $242,500 (est. $200–300,000), and Untitled (Metascape), a lush, abstract embodiment of the five elements, transcended its high estimate of $150,000, earning $170,500.

Notably absent from the Sotheby’s sale were seven-figure prices — and the names often associated with them, such as Subodh Gupta and Tyeb Mehta.

For its auction of modern and contemporary art the following day — which raised a total of $2,412,000, falling short of the anticipated $4.2–6.2 million — Christie’s managed to muster a few Guptas, but they weren't the strongest examples of work by the artist, who brought several million-dollar sales in September. Feast for Hundred and Eight Gods 1 (2005), one of the artist’s kitchen utensil monuments, left something to be desired. Shaped roughly like a cylindrical cone, it lacks the excitement of his hearts and skulls crafted from kitchen ephemera, and the salesroom let it pass at $55,000, just below its low estimate. The consigner of Gupta’s untitled hyperrealist painting of hanging pots and spoons from 2004 was more flexible on the lot’s reserve, letting the painting go for $176,500 (est. $200–300,000).

Later in the sale came two colorful, lushly stroked paintings by F.N. Souza: The Tree Arch on the Road to Hawley Lake, Arizona, which brought $47,500 (est. $40–60,000), and Portrait of H.K. (Harold Kovner), which earned $56,250, (est. $40–60,000). The canvasses looked surprisingly like the work of Cecily Brown, except that they were painted in 1971, meaning that unless Brown was a particularly precocious two-year-old, it seems Souza actually pioneered the pleasing style of lyrical expressionism on which she has since built a career.

On the flip side was Justin Ponmany’s 2007 street scene, which recalled a Warhol car crash. The buyer of the dark picture, which is lit by bursts of neon color, got it for a hammer price of $30,000, well under its $40,000 low estimate, although in this writer’s estimation he got more of a rip-off than a bargain.

Colorful gouaches by Jamini Roy sold across the board, mostly for under $10,000 — nice prices for the artist’s joyfully simple depictions of friendly looking mammals, which were going for as much as $20,000 last fall.

The session’s top price went to a far more somber painting by Vasudeo S. Gaitonde. The artist’s large, abstract work, which suggests a tanker partially submerged in a vast gray ocean, brought $482,500 (est. $300–500,000) — the highest price paid for a work of Indian or South Asian art all week.

Six-figure sums were scarce on the following day, when Christie’s hosted its sale of more than 230 lots of traditional Indian and Southeast Asian art that totaled $3,042,750. The auction began with a session of 21 sculptures and bronzes from the private Star Collection, which, at a total of $883,250, fell notably short of its $1.6–2.3 million pre-sale estimate. A disarming figure of a winged atlas from 2nd/3rd century Gandhara got things off to a good start, going for $170,500 (est. $120–180,000), but bidding for Star lots tended to stop $5,000 to $10,000 shy of expectations. The only item from the group whose hammer price actually exceeded its high estimate was a black stone head of Vishnu, which brought $43,750 (est. $15–20,000).

As the Star highlights gave way to works from various other collections, bidding was steady. A North American collector sitting in the corner of the salesroom, who declined to be identified, went after a handful of the highly estimated large gray schist figures from the 2nd/3rd centuries. He snagged two, the first for $122,500 and the second for $74,500, but sat out the third, which carried a lower estimate of $30–50,000. “No hands,” he said of the statue’s fatal flaw. “Poor guy. It’s very important to have hands.”

Though none of the sales pulled out the stellar, Sackler-esque performances seen elsewhere at Asia Week, the lukewarm results do not necessarily indicate plummeting confidence in the market for Indian and South Asian Art. Both houses are in a transitional moment as far as the category goes, and the reduction of volume and value of South Asian art offered in the U.S. is occurring as they build up their Chinese branches. Sotheby’s kicks off its Hong Kong Asia Week with a much larger selection of modern and contemporary Southeast Asian paintings on April 5, and Christie’s will hold a similar installment on May 24. All things considered, the contraction of the market for Indian and South Asian art in New York may have more to do with the sector’s expanded presence in the East than with the tumbling economy in the West.