Christie’s “Brings Back Confidence”

By Judd Tully
Published: February 4, 2009

Claude Monet's "Dans la prairie" was the evening's top earner, realizing £11,241,250 (est. on request, in the region of £15 million).

Courtesy Christie's
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's "L'abandon (Les deux amies)" fetched £6,201,250 (est. £5–7 million).

LONDON—As if the good fairy had sprinkled “buy me” dust in the salesroom, Christie’s Impressionist and Modern sale performed brilliantly by almost any measure on Wednesday, falling nicely within its pre-sale estimates of £58.8–86 million with a total of £63,428,750 ($91,210,543).Of the 47 lots offered, 39 found buyers, for a crisp buy-in rate of just 17 percent by lot and 12 percent by value.A weakened pound, trading at its lowest level in years, certainly helped the buoyant atmosphere, as four lots sold for over £5 million, 16 for over £1 million, and 25 for over $1 million.Europeans accounted for 54 percent of the buyers by lot, followed by Americans at 26 percent, Britons at 18 percent, and Asians at two percent.The sale didn't stack up to last year’s, when Christie’s tallied £105.4 million against a pre-sale estimate of £89.1–126.2 million, but still, the statistics indicated an unexpectedly healthy market given the dire global economic picture.The action got off to a cracking start with a suite of four sexy and decorative Kees van Dongen paintings from the same French vendor, enticing bidders as Femme aux deux colliers, from circa 1910, shot to £1,329,250 (est. £300-600,000), with London jewelry magnate Laurence Graff underbidding, and La Cuirasse d’or, another bare-breasted subject, from circa 1907, fetching £2,897,250 (est. £1.5–2.5 million). The latter last sold at auction at Christie’s New York in 1980 for $315,000.“We were going for the van Dongens, but they went sky-high,” said New York dealer Leon Benrimon. “It was a great sale and brought back a lot of confidence to the market.”Impressionist and Post-Impressionist-era pictures sold well but not compared to previous outings. Paul Gauguin’s vivid landscape Les dindons, Pont-Aven, from 1888, made £2,057,250/$2,958,326 (est. £2–3 million), selling over the phone. The work last appeared at Christie’s New York in May 1998, when it sold for $2,862,500, meaning the seller made off with about enough of a profit for a short ride in a London black cab.Other works that recently sold at auction lost ground, with Alexej von Jawlensky’s color-charged portrait Mädchen mit roter Schleife (1911) selling for £1,945,250 (est. £1.8–2.5 million). It last sold at Christie’s London a year ago for £2,932,500. You might categorize that as a signal of a distressed sale, but back on the bright side, a stunning 1895 brothel composition by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, L’abandon (Les deux amies), featuring two women in intimate conversation on a bed, sold to a telephone bidder for £6,201,250 (est. £5–7 million).The same bidder nabbed an art-historically important and beautiful painting by Claude Monet, Dans la prairie (1876), which appeared in one of the first Impressionist exhibitions, for a relative bargain at £11,241,250/$16,164,918 (unpublished estimate in the region of £15 million). It last sold at auction at Sotheby’s New York in November 1999, almost ten years ago, for $15,402,500.A rare double-portrait of two sisters by Amedeo Modigliani, Les deux filles (1918), sold over the phone for £6,537,250 (est. £3.5–5.5 million).Sculpture continued to draw widespread interest, and while there was no blockbuster like the Degas bronze dancer that sold at Sotheby’s on Tuesday evening, Henry Moore’s 9 1/4 inch-high bronze, Family Group, cast during his lifetime, sold to Laurence Graff for £481,250 (est. £400–600,000).Graff also nabbed Alberto Giacometti’s Annette d’apres nature, a 21 1/8 inch-high bronze figure conceived (in plaster) in 1954 and cast in the artist’s lifetime, for £937,250 (est. £800,000–1.2 million). Marino Marini’s early equestrian bronze, Gentiluomo a cavallo, conceived in 1937 and cast in his lifetime, sold to London dealer Alan Hobart of Pyms Gallery for £769,250 (est. £700,000–1 million).One of the hottest entries, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s double-sided Drei Pferde (recto), Landschaft (verso) from circa 1923 sold for £959,650 (est. £300–500,000).
“If the recipe is right,” said Thomas Seydoux, co-head of Impressionist and Modern art for Christie’s International, “the results are outstanding.”
Judd Tully is Editor at Large of Art+Auction.