Friday, February 15, 2013

Auction Results: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Auctions, February 12 and 13, 2013 @Sotheby's London

The photography results from Sotheby's Contemporary Art auctions in London last week were generally lackluster, dragged down by a few too many passes on the higher priced photographs. With an overall Buy-In rate for photography across the two sales of nearly 30% and almost no meaningful positive surprises, the Total Sale Proceeds for photography came in under the low end of the range.

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

Total Photography Lots: 34
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: £1293000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: £1901000
Total Lots Sold: 24
Total Lots Bought In: 10
Buy In %: 29.41%
Total Sale Proceeds: £1224600

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: 21
Mid Sold: 17
Mid Bought In: 4
Buy In %: 19.05%
Total Mid Estimate: £321000
Total Mid Sold: £283450

High Total Lots: 13
High Sold: 7
High Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 46.15%
Total High Estimate: £1580000
Total High Sold: £941150

The top lot by High estimate was lot 37, Andreas Gursky, Singapore Börse, 1997, at £350000-550000; it was also the top outcome of the two sales £421250.

95.83% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There was only one surprise in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate), coming on one of the lowest estimated lots:

Lot 361, David LaChapelle, Andy Warhol: Last Sitting, 1986 and Jeff Koons: Sandwich, 2001, together estimated at £5000-7000, selling for £15000 (image at right, top, via Sotheby's)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).

Sotheby's
34-35 New Bond Street
London W1A 2AA

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