The two billion dollar-plus evening auction season ended on a relatively high note on Thursday at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art sale, which tallied $145,545,000 for the 49 lots that sold. The result hit towards the high end of pre-sale expectations pegged at $108.8-157.5 million.Ten of the 59 lots offered went unsold for a tidy buy-in rate by lot of 17 percent. Ten works sold for over five million dollars and 42 made over one million dollars. One artist record set.The result trailed that of the same sale last November, which made $165.6 million for 35 lots sold, and also fell short Sotheby’s sale in the same category on November 5, which brought $306.7 million for the 36 lots that sold.(All reported prices include the hammer total plus the add on buyer’s premium calculated at 25 percent of the hammer price up to and including $100,000, 20 percent on that part of the price over $100,000 and up to and including $2 million and 12 percent for anything over that. Estimates do not include the buyer’s premium.)Only six of the entries were backed by Christie’s guarantees, representing a combined pre-sale estimate of $24.7.2-31.8 million.Those lots realized $28,654,000, including fees, indicating Christie’s and related backers made a profit on their bets.The sale began with a bang, as Henri Matisse’s beautiful charcoal and estompe on paper, “Étude pour La Dormeuse (La Rêve)” from 1939 sold for a whopping $3,805,000 (est. $700,000-1 million). It was one of two prime offerings from the late New York collectors Arthur and Anita Kahn, who also had several works on offer at Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary sale on Tuesday evening — including Alexander Calder and David Smith sculptures and a record-setting Richard Pousette-Dart painting — which collectively brought in $55.9 million, double the high estimate.The Matisse was acquired in 1975, and the other Kahn lot, Pablo Picasso’s late and moody “Homme, femme et profils” from 1967, executed in brush, pen, India ink and brown ink and wash on paper, was bought by the couple the year after it was executed. It sold to New York/London dealer Dominique Levy for $1,145,000 (est. $400-600,000). London dealer Hugh Gibson was the underbidder.There were 11 Picasso works in the sale, of which nine sold, including the rather gloomy “Tête de Femme” from March 1940, shortly before the Nazis’ occupation of Paris. The composition, in oil on paper laid down on canvas, sold to dealer Ethan Cohen of Ethan Cohen New York for $3,749,000 (est. $3-4 million). “Baigneuses au bollon,” a page-sized oil signed and dated 20 August 1928 by Picasso, also went to Cohen, for an estimate-busting $3,525,000 (est. $1-1.5 million). Cohen beat out at least three other bidders on the petite work.“I wanted to go after the most beautiful pieces for my clients,” Cohen said after he left the rather sparsely attended salesroom, “so I was very pleased.”The most important of that diverse group, given its Cubist-era origins, “La Carafe (Bouteille et verre),” both rigorous and spare, painted in the winter of 1911-12, sold to art advisor Abigail Asher of Guggenheim & Asher for the top lot price of $10,469,000 (est. $6-9 million). The painting came armed with a Christie’s guarantee.A Picasso sculpture, the bulbous and scored bronze “Le Bouquet” from a 1953-54 bronze cast, sold for a hefty $5,317,000 (est. $1.5-2.5 million). Another cast from the edition is currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art’s superlative “Picasso Sculpture” exhibition.Other highlights on canvas in the modest line-up included Paul Cézanne’s signature tabletop still life, “Pommes sur un linge” from circa 1886, once in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago before it was deaccessioned in 1987. It sold to a telephone bidder for $9,125,000 (est. $7-10 million). It had last been sold, by the Art Institute, at Sotheby’s New York in May 1987 for $2,310,000.In a similar better-than-average vein, Claude Monet’s late and still luscious “Iris jaunes au nuage rose” from 1924-25, painted in plein air on his meticulously groomed and cultivated property in Giverny, and measuring 39 ½ by 39 ½ inches, went to another telephone on a single bid for $5,765,000 (est. $6-8 million).The canvas bore the stamped signature of Monet, meaning it never left his studio, and those works, without the actual artist signature, historically carry less value in the marketplace.It also bore a Christie’s guarantee.The Monet had last sold at Christie’s New York in November 1999 for $1,080,500.A fresh-to-market Marc Chagall, “L’air bleu” from 1937, depicts from memory the artist’s childhood village near Vitebsk, Balarus, in dreamy blues from a sky-high vantage point. The composition, which contains several important Chagall elements, including a floating violin, a rooster, and an amorous couple lying on a floating cloud of lilacs, sold to another anonymous telephone bidder for $6,885,000 (est. $6-9 million). It was backed by a third party guarantee.There were a few overheated surprises as a rather clunky looking Fauve-period standing nude, Henri Matisse’s “Nu a la serviette blanche,” from 1901-03, sold for a rousing $9,125,000 (est. $3.5-4.5 million).Sculpture played a major role throughout the evening, as evidenced for example by Henri Matisse’s sinuous and odalisque-like “Nu couché II,” a 19-inch-long-by-11-inch-high bronze from a lifetime 1951 cast, which realized $2,965,000 (est. $1.5-2.5 million).Another sought-after bronze, Max Ernst’s “An Anxious Friend (un ami empresse)” from a lifetime 1957 cast, was offered from a select group of European sculptures belonging to San Francisco collectors Harry W. (aka “Hunk”) and Mary Margaret (“Moo”) Anderson; it made $869,000 (est. $200-300,000).Another Anderson bronze, Jean Arp’s 42-inch-high biomorphic “Croissance,”bearing a golden bronze patina and cast in 1960, made $845,000 (est. $400-600,000). New York dealer David Nash was part of the posse of four underbidders.The Arp had been exhibited in 2000-2001 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s tribute, “Celebrating Modern Art: The Anderson Collection.”A smaller sculpture, Alberto Giacometti’s “Buste d’Annette (dit Venise),” an 18 ½-inch-high bronze conceived and cast in 1962, brought $2,285,000 (est. $1.5-2 million).And on a larger scale, Joan Miro’s 80-inch-high, fantastically whimsical bronze “Personnage,” boasting a huge, E.T.-like head and stunted arms and dating from a lifetime 1970 cast, enticed three bidders and sold for $7,109,000 (est. $6-8 million).Later in the interminably long and slow-paced sale, Henry Moore’s massive “Two Piece Reclining Figure: Points,” in bronze and cast before 1973, sold to an impatient bidder, London dealer Alan Hobart, for $7,7669,000 (est. $7-10 million).Seated in the front row, Hobart waved his paddle, indicating he wanted the auctioneer to knock the piece down, but a slower bidding telephone kept the competition going in $100,000 increments.Seemingly fed up, Hobart told the auctioneer loudly that “the money’s on the table,” a line that seemed to do the trick.“You try to buy those big ones and you can’t get them anymore,” Hobart said later, referring to the Moore, which was stationed on the sidewalk directly outside the front doors of Christie’s Rockefeller Center headquarters. “I’m delighted to get it and now I have to worry about shipping it,” presumably overseas.On the still-surging Surrealist front, René Magritte starred with the cover lot painting, “Le miroir universal,” from 1938-39, featuring a standing nude leaning against a smooth rock, her torso tinted blue by the sea behind her. It brought $6,661,000 (est. $3-5 million). Unquestionably fresh to market, it had last sold at Sotheby’s New York in May 1985 for $154,000.Another Magritte, “La grand marée” from 1946, featuring a headless and armless female nude like a damaged antiquity, set, as if on a stage, against a pink curtain and a blue sky in the background, realized $1,445,000 (est. $1.2-1.6 million). It was executed in the desirable Magritte medium of gouache on paper and was backed by a third party guarantee.Kay Sage’s large, 54-by-38-inch “Ring of Iron, Ring Of Wool,” an enigmatic and otherworldly composition from 1947, sold to a telephone bidder for $1,205,000 (est. $80-120,000.)“It deserved the level it received,” said private dealer Meredith Long, who had previously sold the work and was part of the posse of underbidders. “It was her greatest painting.”Christie’s sale, coming a week after rival Sotheby’s much larger $306.7 million Impressionist and Modern Art auction, was a lightweight finale to the spate of seven evening auctions that overall made a rather remarkable $2.01 billion.In comparison, the star lot of the season, Amedeo Modigliani’s ravishing “Nu Couché” from 1917-18 sold for a record $170.4 million — some $25 million more than the entire tally for Thursday’s sale — at Christie’s one-off and heavily marketed “The Artist’s Muse” auction on Monday, which brought $491.3 million.In that “cross-category” mix on Monday, the house also sold a $31 million Paul Gauguin, a $22.5 million Pablo Picasso, a $20.8 million Paul Cézanne and a $20.8 million Alberto Giacometti.It is highly unlikely that the consignor of the Modigliani would have been willing to place the masterpiece in an ordinary Impressionist and Modern context, especially at Rockefeller Center, where the department plays second fiddle to Sotheby’s unassailable lead in this category.For better or worse, Christie’s executive-led, calibrated downsizing (at least judging from appearances) of its Impressionist and Modern wing — seemingly done to accommodate the much larger footprint of Post-War and contemporary art and to enabling Modern art to be sold in the same week as contemporary — reduces the wow factor in this pinched sector of the market.“Part I,” said Paris private dealer Lionel Pissarro, referring to this evening’s sale, “clearly suffers from losing those gems.”
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