Christie’s New York organized the auction on Old Masters Paintings on Oct 31, 2017. This sale realized USD 8,826,000 (including buyer’s premium), selling 62 lots. Last year (Oct 26,2016), the same auction realized a sale of USD 4,388,625 (including buyer’s premium), selling 103 lots.Featuring paintings by some of the greatest European artists working from the late 15th to the early 19th centuries, the auction included many fresh to market works from private collections. Among the highlights were Vigée Le Brun’s Portrait of the Artist, bust-length, Greuze’s La Rêveuse (The Dreamer), van Delen’s An architectural capriccio with figures promenading and boys arguing over a game of skittles, and Constable’s Study of clouds over a landscape. The sale offered exciting rediscoveries like ‘Bouts’s powerful The head of Saint John the Baptist on a charger and a strong selection of Dutch and Flemish still lifes by Daniel Seghers, Hubert van Ravesteyn, Cornelis de Heem, and Edwaert Collier.Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun’s Portrait of the artist, bust-length at USD 1.51 Million and John Constable’s Study of clouds over a landscape at USD 1.15 Million, were the top selling paintings of this sale.Auction Review Analysis powered by BASI (Blouin Art Sales Index):For the art enthusiasts, BlouinArtInfo presents a detailed post auction analysis that covers:• A Summary of Sales• Price Estimation Accuracy: What percentage of Artworks sold above high estimates, between low and the high estimates, and below low estimates?• Top Artworks Sold- Their Hammer Prices and Price Estimates.• Big Surprises - Artworks that sold for much above the estimated prices.1. A Summary of Sales:· Sale Total: USD 8,826,000· Sale Volume: 62 Artworks· # of Artists (Sold): 57· Unsold Artworks: Bought-ins/Withdrawn: 17%On an average, artworks were sold for 1.75 times the estimated low price. 17 % (13) artworks in this sale were bought-ins/withdrawn. 2. Price Estimation Accuracy:· 40.7% (24) of artworks sold above the high estimate(2.48 times the low estimate).· There were a significant number of artworks- 30.5 % artworks (18) that sold below the low estimate.· The rest (28.8 %) of the artworks sold between the low and high estimates.3. Top Artworks Sold- Hammer Prices and Price Estimates.Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun’s, Portrait of the artist, bust-length and John Constable’s Study of clouds over a landscape were the top two lots of this sale. They sold much above their estimated prices, i.e. 2.09 and 2.38 times the estimated low price respectively. The blue bar in the graph indicates the estimated price bands. John Constable’s Study of clouds... was estimated to sell between USD 400,000 USD 600,000, and it got sold for USD 1.15 Million.The lots that sold between USD 300,000 to 1 Million are shown in the above graph. The hammer price (USD 524,167) of Daniel Segher’s, Roses, tulips, and narcissi in a glass vase, with a butterfly, on a ledge, was way above the estimated low price (USD 70,000). It sold at approximately 7.5 times the estimated low price. While most of the artworks in this group ($300,000 to $ 1 Million) sold above or between the estimated prices, La Rêveuse (The dreamer) by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, sold below the estimated low price.4. Big SurprisesThe graph above shows the artworks that sold much above the low estimates. Other than the top selling artworks by Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun’s and John Constable that sold for 2.09 and 2.38 times the low estimates respectively, Sir Anthony van Dyck’s Portrait of Anne, Lady Russell, later Countess Bedford (1615-1684), bust-length, sold for 8.33 times the estimated low price. Click here to view the top five lots of this auction.
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