For Christie's, a Sale Is Good, Not Great
by Zoe Strimpel
Tue, 5 Feb 2008 at 2:13 PM
One of the art market's most anticipated sales took place last night at Christie's, where a strong selection of Impressionist and Modern art was auctioned off for a total of $207.4 million. This category, after all, has traditionally been the biggest money-spinner for the auction houses. However, while the sale was good, it was certainly not spectacular.
Christie's has cautiously called the results "strong" — muted language for a post-sale release.
Unprecedented prices were achieved for some, though not for most artists. Record-breakers included pieces by Kees van Dongen, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Max Ernst. Just 29 lots sold for more than $2 million, and with the market as thunderous as it has been in the last couple of years, it was a little disappointing that the sale was only the second-highest-grossing in Europe to date.
Among the highlights, however, were "L'Ouled Naïl," a 1910 painting of an Algerian dancer by van Dongen, which sold for a record $11,060,160, nearly twice its estimate. Alexej von Jawlensky's "Mädchen mit roter Schleife" did well, too, going for $5,771,106, just more than its upper estimate. The much-vaunted collection of eight beautiful Egon Schiele works went for a strong total of $22,944,912. Of the Surrealist art — and Christie's sets aside a separate sale for this — René Magritte's "Le Printemps," from 1965, led the pack, selling for $5,330,328, in the middle of the estimated band. Could the art market be slowing down, at last?
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