LONDON—Nerves ran high in the run-up to February’s Impressionist and modern evening sales, but the auctions managed to clear the opening hurdle of 2009’s first quarter. Christie’s and Sotheby’s cut the fat from their sessions, reducing their lot volume by more than 50 percent. Their new selectivity helped keep buy-in rates at a reasonable level, though it also produced totals that are anemic compared with last year’s hefty tallies: The superslim session of 29 works at Sotheby’s earned £32,564,300 ($46.2 million), and the 47 lots (down from 131 in 2008) at Christie’s took in £63,428,750 ($91.2 million).

At Sotheby’s on February 3, applause greeted the highest hammer price of the week: £11.8 million ($17 million) paid by an Asian collector for Edgar Degas’s Petite danseuse de quatorze ans, 1922 (est. £9-12 million; $13-17.3 million). The posthumous bronze, which last sold at the same house in 2004 for £5,045,600 ($9.2 million), fetched £13,257,250 ($19 million), including buyer’s premium, easily besting the $12,377,500 that another example from the edition of 28 brought at Sotheby’s in 1999.

"For the right works, there’s really a lot of demand," says Melanie Clore, the cochairman of Impressionist and modern art worldwide at Sotheby’s.

Not all Sotheby’s offerings had the "right" stuff, however. Francis Picabia’s striking Lunis, 1929-30 (est. £450-650,000; $649-763,000) failed to match the £1,072,000 ($1.9 million) it fetched back in 2006, going for only £529,250 ($937,000). Amedeo Modigliani’s Cariatide, 1913 (est. £6-8 million; $8.7-11.5 million), fell even farther off the mark, dying after a lone bid of £4.7 million ($6.8 million).

Despite such evidence of the market’s decline, some strong works soldiered on into pricey territory. The cover lot, Ernst-Ludwig Kirchner’s hallucinatory Strassenszene, 1913 (est. £5-7 million; $7.2-10 million), for instance, brought £5,417,250 ($7.8 million) from a lone telephone bidder. The late Joan Miró abstraction Femmes et oiseaux dans la nuit (est. £750,000-1 million; $1.1-1.4 million) drew interest from at least a half dozen bidders, including the New York dealer Jose Mugrabi, before the international art trader David Nahmad snagged it for a robust £2,001,250 ($2.9 million). And René Magritte’s small and stunning depiction of the Leaning Tower of Pisa being propped up by a feather, Souvenir de Voyage, 1958 (est. £400-600,000; $577-865,000), blew away its high estimate by fetching £746,850 ($1.1 million) from the New York-based art adviser Abigail Asher .

"With the weak pound and the nervousness of buyers," says Asher, "there are opportunities in the market for collectors who haven’t enjoyed the frenzy of the past few years to step back in and get great things."

Certainly, the British currency’s decline helped buoy results at the evening sale on February 4 at Christie’s, where Americans accounted for nearly a quarter of the bidders. The action got off to a brisk start when a suite of four sexy Kees van Dongen paintings, all from the same French consignor, appeared on the block. Each broke £1 million, and Femme aux deux colliers, circa 1910, more than doubled its high estimate, shooting to £1,329,250 ($1.9 million).

"We were going for the van Dongens, but they went sky-high," the New York dealer Leon Benrimon says ruefully, adding, "It was a great sale and brought back confidence to the market."

If confidence was high, however, appreciation wasn’t. Alexij von Jawlensky’s color-charged portrait from 1911, Mädchen mit roter Schleife (est. £1.8-2.5 million; $2.6-3.5 million), depreciated, fetching £1,945,250 ($2.8 million), or about £1 million less than it made last February. Taking inflation into account, even the evening’s top lot, Claude Monet’s Dans la prairie, 1876, lost ground. The airy field scene carried an unpublished estimate in the region of £15 million ($21.4 million) that was no doubt based on its $15.4 million sale at Sotheby’s in 1999. At its 2009 price of £11,241,250 ($16.2 million), the work was a bargain for its buyer but a bad investment for its consignor.