Art Prices Level Off in New York Auction

Prices leveled off and buyers suddenly seemed to become more cautious Friday night at Sotheby’s, as the subject of a continuing round of auctions switched from contemporary to Impressionist and modern art.

Twenty-three of the 79 works offered commanded $1 million or more apiece, but 23 other lots failed to meet the minimum price set by the seller.

In the third successive night of a weeklong series, Sotheby’s sold 56 pieces of Impressionist and modern art for a total of $79.5 million, a figure that barely reached the auction house’s low estimate.

Sotheby’s officials speculated that the disappointing results may indicate that there is too much Impressionist and modern art on the market in the current marathon of sales. “People have so many opportunities to buy, they may be exercising a high degree of selectivity,” said David Nash, head of Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern art department.

But John L. Marion, Sotheby’s chairman and chief auctioneer, cautioned against an overly gloomy outlook. “We get jaded. I don’t know about you, but I think $8.5 million is a lot of money.”

Marion was referring to the top price in the sale, paid by an anonymous private collector for Pierre Auguste Renoir’s Impressionist painting, “Bather.” Emphasizing his point, he noted that the same painting (depicting a woman on a river bank drying her feet) sold at auction in 1985 for $1.85 million.

“Lowering the Curtain,” a 1880 pastel by French Impressionist Edgar Degas brought the sale’s second-highest price of $7.98 million. An unidentified bidder purchased the richly colored interpretation of ballet dancers at the close of a performance.

A second Renoir, “Spring or the Conversation,” brought $4.8 million from an anonymous private collector. A bright yellow-and-blue painting of a field worker by Vincent van Gogh sold for $3.4 million.

Seven works set records for individual artists. Norwegian expressionist Edvard Munch’s painting, “Girls on the Jetty,” sold for $3.3 million, sightly surpassing his record of $3.1 million. “Chant de la Violette,” Belgian Surrealist Rene Magritte’s mysterious portrayal of two men in a field of boulders, brought $1.3 million, double the artist’s former record of $662,112.

Although Sotheby’s estimates frequently proved to be overly optimistic, the auction was no fire sale. The lowest price tag, according to pre-sale estimates, was $200,000 to $300,000 for Auguste Rodin’s 33 1/2-inch-tall bronze, called “Walking Man.” The sculpture, made as a model for a larger work, sold for $418,000.

One factor in the disappointing sale may have been unusually light bidding by Japanese collectors, who are noted for their fondness for French Impressionism. “Maybe they have lost their money,” Nash joked during a press conference, noting that Europeans had taken up part of the slack Friday night.

Coming on the heels of two wildly successful auctions of contemporary art, the lackluster Impressionist and modern sale sparked speculation that the contemporary market might outstrip the much better established and traditionally higher priced Impressionist and modern market.

“I think there is greater interest in contemporary painting now,” Nash said. “People feel they can get higher quality paintings in the contemporary field than they can from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.”

“There is still enormous interest in the field of Impressionist and modern art,” argued Sotheby’s President Diana D. Brooks.

That interest will be tested Monday and Tuesday nights at Christie’s scheduled auctions of Impressionist and modern material.