A hint of optimism crept into the contemporary-art market Monday evening as Phillips de Pury & Company sold 30 of its 39 lots offered for £5,101,350 ($8,451,540), just shy of the £5.34 million low estimate.

That translates into a respectable 77 percent sold by lot and the same by value, a key set of indicators that the house was mostly on target estimate-wise and, more important, was able to keep reserves set by sellers at a modest level. Only one lot made over a million dollars, though three artist records were set, the most expensive at a relatively underwhelming £51,650 pounds for Ashley Bickertons three-part oil, acrylic, and graphite on panel Herr Schoendorff (1999) (est. £15–20,000).

By stark comparison, Phillips de Pury’s evening sale last June tallied some £24.5 million, meaning a 79 percent drop between then and now. Last year’s sale, however, saw a higher casualty rate, with only 66 percent sold by lot.

As the smallest of the so-called Big Three auction houses, at least in the contemporary arena, and the most vulnerable, given its recent takeover by the Moscow-based luxury-brand outfit Mercury Group, Phillips de Pury has seemingly turned a tight survival corner.

The cover lot was the glitzy Richard Prince Spiritual America IV (2005) (est. £400–600,000), which is based on the artist's infamous 1983 work Spiritual America, a re-photographing of a Gary Gross shot of Brooke Shields naked at age 10. Despite its relatively rare status, Spiritual America IV, featuring a grown-up and glamorous Shields in a coco-colored bikini and posed against a custom-made, chrome-outfitted motorcycle, garnered just one bid before failing to find a buyer. This series, complete with artist frame and large-scaled at 93½ by 75 inches, experts say, has never been at auction.

“I’m surprised it didn’t sell,” said one staff member from Gagosian, the gallery that now represents Prince on the global market, though one might question the absence of gallery bids for support. Post-sale chatter had it that another Prince from the same edition of six, plus two artist proofs on offer privately in the U.S., may have killed interest, and unconfirmed speculation suggested the Gagosian gallery was the holder of that work, priced at a negotiable $750,000.

But that was the only major casualty of the hour-long sale, with top lot honors going to Edward Ruschas aptly titled That Was Then This Is Now (1989). A vintage word painting set against a cloudy sky and generously scaled at 42 by 96 inches, it sold without a stitch of competition to a lone telephone bidder at £713,250 (est. £600–800,000).

Although there were works by Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, and Damien Hirst, none of these brand names cracked the million-dollar mark, reflecting their middle-of-the-road quality and importance.

Koons’s cute, stainless-steel Mermaid Troll (1986), from an edition of three plus one artist proof, sold to a telephone bidder for a modest £241,250 (est. £250–350,000). That might not be great news for either the seller or the auction house, but it must have delighted the buyer in this catbird-seat climate.

Prices seemed downright cheap, as evidenced by Wilhelm Sasnals Cemetery (2002), which sold to Joel Yoss of London’s Hauser & Wirth gallery for a seeming bargain of £37,250 (est. £50–70,000).

There were other tasty bargains too, including John Chamberlains compact but animated sculpture Mr. Moto (1963), in painted and chromium-plated steel from 1963, which sold to a telephone bidder for £529,250 (est. £400–600,000), the second-highest result of the evening. It was one of a small handful of works from the 1960s, another being a huge, horizontally striped painting by Kenneth Noland, Shift (1967), which sold to a telephone bidder for £121,250 (est. £100–150,000).

No other house puts as much stock by younger, cutting-edge artists to the evening-sale test, a risky but admirable strategy, especially in these conservative and cautionary times.

In the overachieving department, Mark Grotjahns jazzy, colored pencil on paper Untitled (Large colored butterfly white background 10 wings) (2004) sold to L&M Arts for £145,250 (est. £70–100,000). There were at least three underbidders, including London’s White Cube and New York’s Acquavella Galleries.

“It was a great price for a very high-quality work,” enthused Paris-based L&M consultant Eloïse Benzekri, who beat out the competition. “Especially compared to what it would have made last year.” Asked what that price would have been, Benzekri said £300,000.

As the stiff competition for the Grotjahn indicated, there are buyers searching for excellent and fairly priced material. Though this didn’t exactly result in a bidding-war atmosphere, competition at times was fierce, as indicated by (surprise!) Yue Minjuns large-scale, untitled 2005 composition of his signature smiling men flanked by a flock of birds in formation, which sold to a telephone bidder for £421,250 (est. £250–300,000).

Buttonholed moments after the sale, the underbidder, Swiss collector Ricardo Rossi, who says he owns a half-dozen “important” Yues, noted, “This was a nice one, but it was a bit too expensive. I didn’t expect it to go that high.”

A compatriot work from the once-sizzling contemporary Chinese market, Zhang Xiaogangs untitled portrait of a young girl in Mao cap and pigtails from 2006, failed to sell at £260,000 (est. £300–400,000).

If there was any notion that Phillips isn’t fighting to the finish for every bid on behalf of its consignors, the literally 10-minute-long battle for Jack Goldsteins Untitled (1988) proved to be the evening’s poster child for “We’ll take whatever we can get.”

Estimated at £20–30,000, bidding started at £10,000 and crept along in measly £1,000 increments until the final hammer price of £121,250, probably longer than it took to sell van Goghs Dr. Gachet (1890) at Christie’s for $82.5 million in 1990. Incredibly, the audience appreciated auctioneer Simon de Purys resolve, bursting into applause for the final telephone bid.

“It feels distinctly better than it did a year after June 1990, when the market last crashed,” said a reflective de Pury moments after the sale. “It certainly didn’t feel as good then as it does now.”

That perception sounds accurate. Put another way, “people feel a bit more comfortable today,” according to Phillips’s contemporary head, Michael McGinnis. “The appetite is there, and the depth is there. There’s just a general mood elevation.”

The contemporary-art evening action resumes tomorrow at Christie’s.

Judd Tully is Editor at Large of Art+Auction.