Market Gains Confidence at Christie’s

Tamara de Lempicka Pablo Picasso Alberto Giacometti Henri Matisse Henry Moore Julian Schnabel Max Ernst Camille Pissarro

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That tally fell midway in the pre-sale-estimate range of $87.6–125 million and delivered an impressively svelte buy-in rate of 21 percent by lot and 6 percent by value.

Twenty-four of the 38 lots sold for more than a million dollars, and one artist record was broken when Tamara de Lempicka’s Art Deco–infused Portrait de Madame M. (1932) sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for $6,130,500 (est. $6–8 million). Christie’s Americas president Marc Porter took the winning phone bid.

The painting hurdled the record set at Sotheby’s on Tuesday evening, when de Lempicka’s Portrait de Marjorie Ferry, also from 1932, sold for $4,898,500.

Madame M. was acquired by the family of tonight’s seller at Sotheby’s New York back in November 1989 for $990,000.

Unlike its rival, Christie’s managed to sell all of its most expensive lots, though one of them, a Max Ernst oil from 1928, Malédiction à vous les mamans, was withdrawn by the seller before the sale, in a clear case of stage fright over its unrealistically high $7–9 million estimate.

Picasso ruled the roost with late-period pictures, including the feisty, color-charged cover lot, Mousquetaire à la pipe (1968), which sold to Brussels dealer Mimo Vedovi for $14,642,500 (est. $12–18 million), becoming the evening's top lot.

Vedovi outgunned at least three other bidders, including New York trader Jose Mugrabi.

“I bought the painting for a European client who has a big collection,” said Vedovi after the surprisingly buoyant sale, “but not a Mousquetaire-period Picasso. We were willing to go higher.”

The painting last sold at Christie’s New York in November 2004 for $7,175,500 to collector Jerome Fisher, who took a third-party financial guarantee for the pipe-smoking seated figure this round. News reports identified the collector as one of the many victims of Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme.

A larger and later Picasso, Femme au chapeau (1971), consigned by the American filmmaker and artist Julian Schnabel, sold to international dealer David Nahmad for $7,754,500 (est. $8–12 million).

Before the bidding began, auctioneer Christopher Burge announced that this Picasso would be sold without the frame it was previewed in, causing a bit of nervous buzz in the salesroom. Perhaps the seller wanted to recycle it for one of his own paintings.

The huge picture, measuring 76 5/8 by 51 1/8 inches, was part of a storied exhibition that Picasso curated of his own late work but that took place in Avignon at the Palais des Papes after his death, in 1973.

Sculpture also excelled at Christie’s, especially Alberto Giacometti’s Buste de Diego (Stele III), a stately bronze from a 1957–58 plaster that sold after a firefight of bidding to a telephone bidder for $7,698,500 (est. $4.5–6.5 million). Victoria Gelfand of Gagosian Gallery and Swiss dealer Beda Jedlicka were the underbidders.

Another telephone bidder grabbed Henry Moore’s mythic bronze Falling Warrior (1956–57) for $3,554,500 (est. $2.5–3.5 million), outlasting two other competitors.

“It went like a summer’s day,” said Burge in a post-sale press conference, describing the event. “Everything did well, with a few modest exceptions.”

Burge broke down the buyers’ geography, a bit of statistical number-crunching favored by Christie’s, with 42.1 percent of buyers from the U.S., 44.7 percent from Europe, 7.9 percent from Asia, and 5.3 percent “others.”

The evening was a much stronger result than last November's, when Christie’s racked up a higher total, $146.7 million, but also ugly unsold rates of 44 percent by lot and 37 percent by value.

Impressionism continued a strong recovery march, at least in terms of feverish bidding for some top-class lots, including Camille Pissarro’s apple-picking scene La cueillette des pommes (1881), which sold to yet another telephone bidder for $3,330,500 (est. $1.4–1.8 million). New York art adviser Mary Hoeveler was the underbidder.