Christie’s kicked off the marquee auction week with a double-header, which brought in a total of $690 million, including fees.
The first event of Monday night was the Robert and Patricia Ross Weis Sale, featuring a collection from the former heads of the Weis Markets chain. The auction featured 18 lots, a select, high-value picks from a larger collection which would be auctioned later, consisting of 20th century mavericks like Picasso, Matisse, and Rothko. The auction saw a bidding war over Figure et bouquet (Tête ocre) (1937) by Henry Matisse, which ended up selling for $32.3 million over a $27 million high estimate.
The second event of the night was a 20th century sale of 62 lots, featuring names like David Hockey, Giacometti, Matisse, and Picasso. It featured the most intense bidding war of the night, with Marc Chagall’s Le Songe du Roi David (1966) fetching $26.5 million against a $12 million high estimate.
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Overall, after some fierce bidding wars of the night, the double-header sales brought a combined total of $690 million. This was well above the low estimate of $534 million for the event, although it fell short of the $731 million high estimate. Only 3 lots failed to sell while one was withdrawn before auction, thus achieving an impressing sell-through rate of 97 percent for the night. The total value was also a 41 percent increase over a similar double-header in May, which brought in $489 million, while the equivalent double-header auction in November of last year also only managed to bring $486 million from 72 lots. As the first auction evening of the marquee week, the Monday night numbers look promising and indicate towards a stronger, more optimistic market.
