Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Auction Results: Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening, Morning and Afternoon Sales, November 10 and 11, 2009 @Christie's

If you are an optimistic, glass half full kind of person, then the performance of the photography lots in the recent series of Contemporary Art sales at Christie's should give you some positive feelings about the state of market; the Total Sale Proceeds were smack in the middle of the range, and the Buy-In Rate was low (just under 18%).

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 62
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $3538000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $5038000
Total Lots Sold: 51
Total Lots Bought In: 11
Buy In %: 17.74%
Total Sale Proceeds: $4240750

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 0
Low Sold: NA
Low Bought In: NA
Buy In %: NA
Total Low Estimate: $0
Total Low Sold: NA

Mid Total Lots: 31
Mid Sold: 25
Mid Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 19.35%
Total Mid Estimate: $888000
Total Mid Sold: $770000

High Total Lots: 31
High Sold: 26
High Bought In: 5
Buy In %: 16.13%
Total High Estimate: $4150000
Total High Sold: $3470750

91.94% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There was only one surprise in this sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 449 Vik Muniz, Bette Davis (Pictures of Diamond), 2004, at $62500.

The top lots by High estimate were lot 353, Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #15, 1978, and lot 408, Andreas Gursky, Toys 'R' Us, 1999, both at $300000-400000. The Sherman sold for $338500 and the Gursky sold for $434500, and they were the top two outcomes of the sale.

Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening), here (Morning) and here (Afternoon).

Christie's
20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020

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