Picasso’s Mousquetaire à la pipe, 1968 (est. $12-18 million), snagged the week’s top price, $14,642,500. "I bought the painting for a European client who has a big collection but not a Mousquetaire," says the Brussels dealer Mimo Vedovi. The picture had last sold for $7,175,500 in 2004 at Christie’s to the collector Jerome Fisher — reportedly a victim of Bernard Madoff — who consigned it this spring in return for a third-party financial guarantee. A larger and later Picasso, Femme au chapeau, 1971, consigned by the filmmaker and artist Julian Schnabel, was bought by Nahmad for $7,754,500, just under its low estimate of $8 million. Before the bidding began, auctioneer Christopher Burge caused a bit of a buzz in the salesroom by announcing that the frame in which the picture had previewed was not part of the sale, leading some to speculate that Schnabel wanted to recycle it on one of his own paintings.

Christie’s also did well with lots of sculpture, such as Alberto Giacometti’s Buste de Diego (Stele iii), a stately bronze cast from a 1957-58 plaster (est. $4.5-6.5 million), which a telephone bidder won for $7,698,500 in a fierce competition with Gagosian Gallery’s Victoria Gelfand and the Swiss dealer Beda Jedlicka, among others. Another telephone bidder outlasted two competitors to nab Henry Moore’s mythic bronze Falling Warrior, 1956-57 (est. $2.5-3.5 million), for $3,554,500.

"It went like a summer’s day," Burge says of the evening. "If you can get the right material, you can get the best results at auction.

"Auction Reviews: Impressionist & Modern Art" originally appeared in the July/August 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's July/August 2009 Table of Contents.