Christie’s first spring sale took place last night, totaling at a measly $285.9 million, barely making it into the $244.5 million to $360.4 million estimate and disappointing predictions of the ever-skyrocketing market. The prices have dropped “back down to Earth,” The New York Times giddily concluded, adding that “none of the sales eclipsed the artists’ auction records.”
“The market continues to be discerning at the highest level,” deputy chairman of Christie’s Impressionist and modern art department Conor Jordan told the Times. (Translation: Damn, I really thought they’d buy more shit last night.) Dealer Christophe Van de Weghe added, “People are selective. Yes there’s a lot of money around — but the market is getting smarter.” (Translation: Na-na na-na na-na, na-na, na.)
In case you’re curious, the top sales are from the same bunch of dead painters who are amazing enjoyable inside a reasonably priced museum.
Monet’s Water Lilies from 1907 sold for $27 million. Not this one above, but this one which we don’t have permission to use. It looks exactly the same but the flowers on the bottom left lilly pad are closer together.
Portrait of Dora Maar, another portrait of people Picasso was fucking, from 1942, sold for $22.5 million.
Amedeo Modigliani’s 1919 Red-Haired Young Man sold for $17.6 million. There was also Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Young Women Playing Badminton which sold for $11.4 million, but that sounds so boring, why don’t we all look at Renoir’s Large Bathers from 1887 instead.
