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Christie’s 19th Century – A Slight Improvement

April 20, 2018
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Bouguereau “Admiration maternelle – le bain”

The auction action in New York started this week with the 19th century sale at Christie’s … so let’s jump in.

Taking the top two spots were works by William Bouguereau.  His Admiration maternelle – le bain carried an $800-$1.2M estimate and hammered down at $750K — $912.5K with commission (w/c); this same painting sold back in 1984 for $100K.  La grande soeur, which also carried an $800-$1.2M estimate, brought $700K (852.5K w/c – back in 1983 it made $80K). So, while they may not have reached the levels the auction room expected, they did offer a nice return over the years.  In third was one of the La Salle University works … Ingres’ Virgil Reading from the Aeneid – not one I was very impressed by.  This painting had a $600-$1M estimate and hammered down at $550K ($672.5K w/c).

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Bouguereau “La grande soeur”

Rounding out the top 5 were Paul Helleu’s La Lettre, which carried a $300-$500K estimate and brought $490K ($600.5K w/c – it last sold in 1994 for $279K) and E.L. Weeks’ A Fête Day at Bekanir – Beloochistan, Bekanir, which this time around carried a reasonable estimate of $150-250K, hammered at $340K ($420.5K w/c). In May of 2017, Christie’s offered it with a $300-$500K estimate and it was unsold.  Funny to think that with a much lower estimate, the painting landed in last year’s higher estimate range … go figure?  What a difference a day makes! And one other point of interest, the Weeks last sold in 1993 for $37K.

There were a few nice surprises.  Frederic, Lord Leighton’s tiny (4 x 7 inch) still life study was expected to bring $15-$20K and sold for $42K ($52.5K w/c); Carrier-Belleuse’s L’Omnibus made $85K ($106K w/c – est. $50-70K – it last sold in 1994 for $25K) and Thaulow’s small (18 x 21 inch) A Stream in Springtime made $48K ($60K w/c – est. $25-35K). And, as with every sale, there were works that could not find a buyer, these included paintings by: Beraud (sorry, but the estimate was a bit too optimistic), Pasini, Lazerges, Kruseman, Boulanger and Hardy.

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Ingres “Virgil Reading from the Aeneid”

By the end of the short session, of the 61 lots offered, 43 (70.5%) found new homes, for a total take of $5.185M ($6.4M w/c) … the low end of their estimate range was $6.09M. So, they made it with the buyer’s commission added in.

Digging a little deeper we find that almost 25% of the sale (15 works) came from one consignor … Property of a Prince – these included the two Bouguereaus. Then there were the 5 paintings being sold by La Salle University which carried a combined estimate range of $800-$1.3M and only achieved a hammer price of $645K (2 of the 5 works failed to find a buyer) … I am sure they were not very happy but then again, the paintings weren’t very impressive. And finally, of the 43 sold works, 16 fell below, 19 within and 8 above their estimate ranges, leaving the overall accuracy rate for the entire sale at 31.1%.

While these results were not newsworthy, they were much better than last year’s sale:

Number of Lots: 87 (2017) vs. 61 (2018)
Sell-through rate: 56.8% (2017) vs. 70.5% (2018)
Accuracy rate: 13.8% (2017) vs. 31.1% (2018)
Low end of estimate range: $7.5M (2017) vs. $6.09M (2018)
Total take: $5.18M hammer (2017) vs. $5.19M (2018)
Total take with Buyer’s Commissions: $6.4M (for both sales)

So, in 2018 there were 30% fewer lots, a higher sell-through rate, a better accuracy rate, a lower overall estimate range and the same sale’s total.  They even made it into their estimate range once the buyer’s commission was added in.  These improvements are a positive sign for the 19th century market.

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E.L. Weeks “A Fête Day at Bekanir – Beloochistan, Bekanir”

We always stress that people should buy works of art that they love and want to live with, and not buy art for its ‘investment’ potential — you never know what will happen and when you might need to sell. However, as you can see from some of the works noted above, if you hold on to your art for a protracted period … usually in the range of 25-35 years … odds are you will do ok. Bouguereau’s Admiration maternelle – le bain produced a 6.72% annual return on the initial $100,000 purchase price. His La grande soeur did slightly better at 6.99%. Helleu’s La Lettre came in at 3.25%, while Carrier-Belleuse’s L’Omnibus achieved a 6.2% annual return.  One of the biggest winners was E.L. Weeks’ A Fête Day at Bekanir – Beloochistan, Bekanir which came in at an annualized return of 10.21%.

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