Pre-sale bidding may have loosened up the reserves on certain lots, but the practice certainly didn’t help the sale’s entertainment factor. “There’s no action in the room,” said dealer Maxwell Davidson. But along with his father, which whom he shares his name and his New York gallery, Davidson managed to generate some in-house excitement, paying $146,500 for Edmund C. Tarbell’s Hansom Cab in London (1886), estimated at $150–250,000. Later in the sale, the powerhouse pair relocated to the front row to go after a Milton Avery, Melon Vendor (1946–47), which they won for $350,500 (est. $250–350,000).

Bidding got more brisk the following day at the Sotheby’s auction, which offered a slightly more refined selection of 107 lots. Sotheby’s wound up nearly hitting its pre-sale estimate range of $17–25 million, with 66 lots totaling $15,303,125, for rates, similar to those at Christie's, of 61.7 percent by lot and 73.2 percent by value.

The top seller was a wintry Paris view painted by Childe Hassam in 1887 in a palette of ruddy white, hazy gray, and rosy pink. The serene scene had been embroiled in a controversy for over a year; it was among the works that CNET founder Halsey Minor won at various Sotheby’s auctions last May and then refused to pay for, due to his allegations that the house had not disclosed interest in some of his purchases. This go-around, Paris, Winter Day, 1887 brought $2,322,500 (est. $1.5–2.5 million), the highest price paid for a piece of American art all week, though far less than the $3,961,000 Minor pledged to pay for it last May. The house’s other major Hassam offering, a 1901 marine scene of ships docked in Newport, Rhode Island, was also big seller, surpassing its estimate of $500,000 to $700,000 to bring in $902,500.a

Although a pair of ambitiously estimated canvases by Thomas Hart Benton failed to attract buyers, smaller works by the artist had better luck: Benton’s Three Figures (1914–15) brought $110,500 (est. $100–150,000) and a later, more abstract work, Fantasy (1946), made $59,375 (est. $25–35,000). Other works that broke estimates included a Fairfield Porter painting of a flowering meadow, which brought an unexpected $158,500 — more than triple its high estimate of $50,000.

Sotheby’s also managed to make the biggest sculpture sale of the week when Harriet Whitney Frismuth’s 83½-inch bronze of a gracefully posed nude woman, The Vine (1923), brought $962,500 against an estimate of $400,000 to $600,000. It was a new record for the artist, who also sold well in the Christie’s session.

But the real excitement came when the sale’s cover lot hit the block. Country Fair was done in 1950 by the famed, self-taught artist Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma) Moses, whose busy rural scenes seemed to be the flavor of the week, not only at Christie’s and Sotheby’s but at Bonhams’s sale on May 20 as well. The large picture was estimated to go for between $700,000 and $900,000 — a rather ambitious expectation given that her paintings typically register in the under-$500,000 range. The salesroom was tense as the lot opened at $450,000, but anxiety gave way to intrigue as the bids climbed past the sale’s low estimate of $700,000, with two contenders — one in the room and one on the phone — vying for the work. Ultimately, the painting sold to the phone for $1,082,500. The underbidder — the same white-haired gentleman who had lost the race for Walter Ufer’s portrait of a Taos, New Mexico, man that sold for $752,500 (est. $400–600,000) — was rumored to be a dealer buying for the forward-minded billionaire T. Boone Pickens.

Perhaps Pickens is extending his personally funded bailouts to the art market? That would give us all something to look forward to. A fearless cowboy with a twinkle in his eye, saddlebags full of cash, and a savvy dealer in his stable may be just what the category of American art needs to get out of the doldrums.