Some of the items I saw at the Christie's exhibition were autioned at their Impressionist and Modern sale last week. The Kandinski went for $21.1.m/£13.5m (in 2008 it went for $16.8m in New York), a Modigliani portait went for $10.6m/£6.7m, and a Picasso slightly exceeded its estimate at $9.5m. However a Derain portrait of Madame Matisse in a kimono did not sell, while a Rodin piece quadrupled its estimate at £5.4m. All of which demonstrates that being an auctioneer may not be as easy as it looks. I also learned about something called an "irrevocable bid", which means a bidder makes a promise to bid at a certain price before the sale - this is usually kept confidential, but at this sale it was announced that such a bid for a Soutine ($16m) was not topped at the auction itself, which some see as this practice potentially setting a ceiling price as well as a floor price. (Is this a good thing or a bad thing? No idea.)
Apparently, as so many good quality pieces in this category are in public museums or private collections relatively little comes on to the market, so both Christie's and Sotheby's have relied on the Nahmad family of dealers for a good proportion of their sales this year, as they have a large inventory. Both the paintings which achieved the highest prices, the Kandinski and the Modigliani, were from this source. The Christie's auction was very successful, but not quite as much as rival Sotheby's sale held a few days later. Both sales demonstrated the strength of the market for this kind of work, bolstered in Christie's case by telephone buyers from the emerging Asian and Russian markets and an Indian buyer in the room (who also bid successfully at the Sotheby's sale).
Incidentally, the Christie auctioneer got a round of applause for his handling of the sale!
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