The Art Market: The Next Act

Next week we will have the first chance since the November Sales to see what further effect the the deepening economic crisis is having on the high-end fine art market.  Both Sotheby’s and Christies have important Impressionist and Modern Art auctions in London.

Sotheby’s goes first on Tuesday 3rd, but to my mind their show is less attractive than the Christie’s show the next day.  The minimum estimates at Sotheby’s are £41m and the high estimates total £60m, with a Degas sculpture and a Modigliani painting at the top end.

At Christies, the show’s minimum estimate is £46m, maximum £66m, not including the top-rated Monet for which the estimate is private.  Another Monet is also in the top five, along with a Toulouse-Lautrec, a Modigliani, and a Vuillard.

I believe my favourite piece in the two shows is this “La cuirasse d’or” by Kees Van Dongen.  Estimate range is $2.1 million to $3.5 million.

It’s Official: Art Has Crashed

It probably comes as no surprise after the fall auctions that both Christies and Sothebys are introducing “significant staff reductions.”

Christie’s reorganization is the first at the London-based auction house since 2001, when the end of the dot.com boom eroded investors’ appetite for art auctions. Its rival, Sotheby’s, said in December that it planned to reduce costs by $7 million in 2009 by cutting jobs and salaries, citing an “uncertain and challenging macroeconomic environment.”

Some art experts had been predicting that high-end art sales would simply float over the economic troubles of the rest of the world.  That hasn’t proved to be the case.  Even for the very rich, discretionary purchases (which is all that art at this level can be) have to be reined in, for a while at least.

One of Christies “salvation” pieces for sale next month is Edward Vuillard’s “Les Coutourieres” (see image). It is a beautiful work, one that I might like to grace my own walls, but can it really fetch the $8million asking price in this market?

Good Fine Art Falls Like The Dow

The Dow fell 7% today.  Perhaps this was the hangover from the terrible results of the Jeanne Lanvin auction at Christies in Paris this morning.  Pre-sale estimates were for a total sale of between Euros 13 million and 19.7 million.   Total sales actually realised:  just Euros 7.7 million.   One has to wonder how many guaranteed prices Christies are eating tonight.

The big picture — Renoir’s Tapisseries dans le parc — failed to sell.   Of the other high-priced pre-sale estimates, another Renoir barely cleared its 800,000 minimum, as did the delightful L’embarcadère à Trouville by Eugene Boudin.   A third Renoir found 1.15 million against the anticipated minimum of 1.2 million, and Picasso’s La Coiffure fetched Euros 840,000 against an expected low of 1 million.  Both Degas’ Femme au chapeau bleu and Mademoiselle Salle, each estimated at around Euros 1 million, failed to find buyers.

There were some successes, however.  Pieces by Pierre Bonnard, Jean-Louis Forain, Eduard Vuillard, Roger de la Fresnaye — along with Renoir’s jeune fille — all sold well over their pre-sale highs.