Sotheby’s unsold Picasso, the auction’s cover lot
I’m not going to exhaustively cover the evening sales this season. It’s probably better to avert our eyes from the shrunken catalogues with their shrunken estimates.
So let’s get this over with quickly: Sotheby’s Impressionist/Modern sale tonight fetched a hammer total of $52.95 million, against its presale estimate of $81.5-118.8 million (which does not include buyer’s premium). The sold total including the buyer’s premium: $61.37 million.
The two most highly touted works failed to sell: Picasso‘s “The Artist’s Daughter at Two-and-a-Half, with a Boat,” 1938 (above), estimated at $16-24 million; Giacometti‘s “The Cat,” 1951, also estimated at $16-24 million. Some 29 of the 36 lots found buyers, but the sale was a dismal 58.8% sold by dollar amount.
A museum-related track record seemed to help prices: The top lot was Mondrian‘s “Composition in Black and White, with Double
Lines,” 1934, which had been on loan at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts from 1967-2009. It was knocked down at $8.2 million ($9.27 million with buyer’s premium), trouncing its presale estimate of $3-5 million. A Monet and two Pissarros that had been displayed in the Metropolitan Museum’s 1993 Havemeyer Collection show all handily exceeded their presale estimates. The Monet and one of the Pissarros had remained on loan at the Met, often on view in its galleries, until earlier this year.