At Phillips on February 11, the price bubbles for still more artists deflated. Mark Grotjahn’s Untitled (Pink Butterfly M02G), 2002 (est. £200-300,000; $293-440,000), sold to Gagosian, one of the artist’s key dealers, for £180,000 ($260,000). This led the London collector Edward Lee to wonder about his own holdings of the artist’s paintings. "[They] were trading at $500,000 to $600,000 not so long ago," he says. "I don’t know if it’s better to sit on my hands or sell works to get some money back."

As speculative buying becomes less feasible, the market may focus again on the artworks rather than their profit potential. In the past few years, "people had more money than sense and were willing to pay premium prices for subpar work," says Howard Rachofsky, the Dallas collector and museum patron. Rachofsky longs for an environment in which "if something of quality is offered to you, you could possibly negotiate a fair price and build a collection or change focus." Prices falling into line with quality may just be the crucial indicator in this still-adjusting market.

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