Sotheby's Takes Care of Business: Impressionist/Modern Results

CultureGrrl, your intrepid art-combat correspondent, has just returned from the York Avenue bidding skirmishes. It was a businesslike and subdued affair. But the polished, if impersonal, auctioneer Tobias Meyer got the job done, with a total sold hammer price of $212.07 million, slightly below the sale's presale estimate of $219.6-299.8 million. (For a complete price list, go here.)

The only real electricity (and the only big smile from Sotheby's Impressionist/modern head David Norman) came from a long, intense bidding duel between Swiss dealer Doris Ammann, taking her instructions by cell phone, and Sotheby's Impressionist/modern vice president Charles Moffett, who was on the phone with a client. Their quarry was Modigliani's "The Concierge's Son." The blue-eyed boy defied both his $14-18 million presale estimate and collectors' usual predilection for that artist's reclining nudes, by soaring to $27.75 million ($31.1 million with the buyer's premium, close to the $31.37-million record auction price for Modigliani). Ammann, who ultimately prevailed, is the sister of Thomas Ammann, the prominent Zurich dealer in Impressionist and modern art and major collector of contemporary art, who died in 1993, at the age of 43. She declined to say for whom she had purchased the work.

But another Modigliani male portrait, "Paul Guillaume," sold cheaply, causing the front-row buyer, to be congratulated in French by another attendee: "Très bien acheté, eh?" It fetched only $4.3 million ($4.83 million with premium), below it's estimate of $5-7 million. That was not much more than it sold for in 2000---$4.63 million (with premium).

Top price in the sale, as expected, was $35 million ($36.78 million with premium) for Cézanne's "Still Life with Fruits and a Ginger Pot"---a price that equaled its high estimate. So William Acquavella made good on his $18.22-million investment, as he had anticipated.

There were two major flops: Monet's "The Beach at Trouville," which Norman called "one of the finest early Impressionist paintings in private hands," nevertheless failed to sell at $15.25 million, compared to the $16.57 million it had fetched in 2000. And Picasso's "The Rescue," estimated at $12-16 million, went unsold at $10.75 million. Norman said that Sotheby's had "inquiries coming in" about making a deal for that painting, even before the crowd had cleared out of the salesroom. The Picasso was one of only three unsold works for which Sotheby's had given guarantees. (The others were a Schiele and a Nolde.) In all, Sotheby's had given guarantees for 24 works. So, especially if the Picasso soon sells, it appears that the guarantee gambit paid off.

A few more facts and figures:

Sale total including buyer's premium: $238.67 million.
72 lots sold/11 failed to sell (an 86.8% sold rate).
Works that failed to sell accounted for 17% of the total amount bid.

Norman said there was an international mix of buyers, and "some of the consignors in this sale were bidding on lots in the sale," reflecting "a dynamism" in how people are collecting today. He added that some "wonderful results" were achieved for things that had been on the market quite recently.

And don't stop thinkin' about tomorrow (actually, its already tomorrow, so make that tonight), when Christie's takes center stage with its killer Klimts and Gauguin's hatchet man.