Market

On May 11, Christie’s Paris held a sale of antique books, artists’ books and manuscripts. A total of 224 lots were presented, with 177, or 80 percent, finding buyers. Read More

California’s 35 year-old Resale Royalty law was struck down as unconstitutional in the US District Court of Appeals, ninth district, on May 17. Read More

Overall totals of Latin American art were up at Sotheby’s and Christie’s as the sales saw vibrant, global demand and set several new records. Read More

Less than two weeks after New York auction houses racked up nearly $900 million in contemporary art sales at spring auctions, demand was still robust as Sotheby’s London saw works from another private collection surge past estimates. Read More

NEW YORK—A painting of two little girls titled Fishing for Frogs, 1882, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, earned the top price at the three-part, May 15 sale of American and European art, held at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, bringing $1.7 million, and falling within the $1.5 million/2 million estimate. There were some other strong prices, such as $242,500 (estimate: $200,000/300,000) for Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s 1890s Port of Saint-Tropez, and $170,500 (estimate: $80,000/120,000) for Martin Johnson Heade’s Cherokee Roses in a Glass Vase, ca. 1883–88. Read More

LONDON—Modern British art easily outperformed the new sales mix of Victorian, early 20th-century, sporting, marine, Irish, and Scottish art, at Sotheby’s in London on May 10–11. The latter, a combination of several, previously stand-alone sale categories that have been experiencing dwindling results wrapped into one catalogue, felt like a random mixture, observers said. Read More

Overall sale volume at American art auctions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, on May 16–17, rose considerably, to $62 million, compared with last year’s total of $49.3 million, but the total was still below the $66.9 million result achieved in 2010 (ANL, 6/14/11). Further, the gains were realized with smaller offerings of works at both houses, with sell-through rates also improved, compared with last spring. Read More

NEW YORK—Dominating the headlines at the recent round of spring auctions was Edvard Munch’s 1895 version of his iconic painting The Scream. Commanding just under $120 million with premium, the painting, which became the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction, accounted for just about one-fifth of the $523 million Impressionist and modern art total at Sotheby’s and Christie’s combined. Read More

A Cubist-style design by Le Corbusier, woven into an Aubusson tapestry and titled Bogota, 1950, was the top lot at the Los Angeles Modern Auctions May 6 sale of modern art and design, earning $131,250 and outpacing its $40,000/60,000 estimate. Read More

The contemporary art market powered on at Sotheby’s on May 9 when $266.6 million was garnered, well within the $216 million/304 million estimate, establishing another batch of record prices. Read More

A surge in overall contemporary art sales at this year’s spring auctions, a two-week series that began with Impressionist and modern art, helped propel the season to $1.4 billion, one of the highest totals in recent years, but still below the $1.75 billion peak of the previous market boom reached in fall 2007 (ANL, 11/27/07). Read More

There were a few bright spots in an otherwise lackluster American and European art sale at Shannon’s in Milford, Conn., on April 26, including the $96,000 final price paid for New York street artist Paul Cornoyer’s undated painting A Spring Day, New York, which exceeded its $60,000/80,000 estimate. Read More