The annual spring auction hurricane made landfall in New York last night with a double header at Christie’s Rockefeller Center headquarters. First appointment: the third sale dedicated to works from the SI Newhouse collection. Although the whole assembly was guaranteed by the house a long time ago (and much of the risk was then passed on to third parties, as you will see), the night started with a low chill of nervous energy in the auction room stemming from months of chatter about the potential for interest rate hikes, stubbornly persistent inflation and other macroeconomic oddities to disrupt Gotham’s seasonal auction bonanza.
But anxiety quickly gave way to quiet confidence as the auction pushed the third frame from the Newhouse collection into respectable territory. Below is the story in numbers…
SI Newhouse Evening Sale
- Total sales after fees: $178 million
- Lots sold (including guaranteed lots): 16
- Lots offered before withdrawals: 16
- Lots withdrawn Presale: 0
- Lots purchased: 0
- Sale rate including withdrawals: 100 per cent
- Sale rate excluding withdrawals: 100 per cent
- Total Hammer: $150.5 million
- Low pre-sale estimate before withdrawals: $142 million
- Hammer Total vs Presale Low Estimate: +$8.5 million
- Total low estimate of withdrawn batches: $0
- Total Low Estimate of Guaranteed Lots: $142 million (100% of total pre-sale low estimate)
- Lots with house guarantees: 16
- Total low estimate of guaranteed third-party prizes: $133.7 million (94.2% of total pre-sale low estimate)
- Lots with Third Party Guarantees: 11
- Top rated seller: by Francis Bacon self-portrait (1969), hammered at $29.8 million ($34.6 million after fees)
- Quote of the night: “We saw 16 works over 100 years, so we all got to see the world through [Newhouse’s] eyes,” said Max CarterVice President of Christie’s for 20th and 21st Century Art.
Henri ‘Le Douanier’ Rousseau, Flamingos (1910). Estimated between $20 and $30 million, it sold for an artist record $43.5 million. © Christie’s Images Limited 2023.
Immediately after the sale of Newhouse, Christie’s launched its 20e evening session of the century. Although the liveliness of the Newhouse sale eased some of the aforementioned tension in the Rock, the tone swayed throughout the second event of the night, as frantic bidding for prime lots (including a coda of the Paul G. Allen collection) gave way. to more commercial transactions and more than a couple of important past lots (titled by Picasso Seated Woman with a Straw Hat (Marie-Thérèse) bought at $18.5 million, just below its low estimate of $20 million).
Here’s how the data broke…
20e-Evening sale of the century
- Total sales after fees: $328.8 million
- Lots sold (including guaranteed lots): 44
- Lots offered before withdrawals: 57
- Lots withdrawn Presale: 3
- Lots purchased: ten
- Sale rate including withdrawals: 77.1%
- Sale rate excluding withdrawals: 81.4%
- Total Hammer: $276.1 million
- Low pre-sale estimate before withdrawals: $260 million
- Hammer Total vs Presale Low Estimate: +$16.1 million
- Total low estimate of withdrawn batches: $9.5 million
- Total Low Estimate of Guaranteed Lots: $176.6 million (67.9% of total pre-sale low estimate)
- Lots with house guarantees: 28
- Total low estimate of guaranteed third-party prizes: $131.3 million (50.5% of total presale low estimate)
- Lots with Third Party Guarantees: 14
- Top rated seller: by Henri Rousseau Flamingos (1969), hammered at $37.5 million ($43.5 million after fees)
- Lasting memory: Market watchers will remember this selloff as Flamingos went in fire, resetting Rousseau’s bids by almost 10 times after fees. His previous record was just $4.4 million, set in 1993 – the last time we saw one of his extremely rare paintings cross the block before last night.
Next sale: Christie’s 21st night sale of the century on Monday, May 15.
Check back throughout the week for our continuing coverage of this spring’s sales slate.
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