Sotheby’s Claims Lion’s Share of Photography Auction Total

A four-day marathon of photography auctions this week at Sotheby’s and Christie’s totalled $8.2 million in sales. Sotheby’s claimed the lion’s share, $5.6 million, the majority of it on Thursday in a $3.2-million auction of about 500 photographs, portfolios and albums consigned by a variety of owners.

The top lot was Henri le Secq’s mid 19th-Century album of 60 photographs of French churches, bought for $220,000 by a consortium of three dealers, Harry Lunn, Robert Hershkowitz and Ezra Mack. Sotheby’s had valued the album at $60,000 to $90,000.

A volume of scenes from the Crimean War by Roger Fenton brought the sale’s second highest price of $121,000, more than double its top estimate of $60,000. A 1907 photograph of a female nude torso by Clarence H. White and Alfred Stieglitz, valued at up to $70,000, sold for $93,500.

While many prices escalated to new heights, bringing Thursday’s $3.2-millon sale within Sotheby’s estimated total of $2.6 million to $3.9 million, 121 lots failed to sell, including some of Robert Mapplethorpe’s work.

His prices seemed to have no limit last November, in the first big auctions after his death, but seven of the 22 works offered earlier in the week at Christie’s didn’t sell.

Sotheby’s sale produced sharply mixed results for the controversial artist. One erotic work, “Thomas in a Box,” brought $39,600, topping the $38,500 record for a single Mapplethorpe image set in November. But three of the 36 Mapplethorpes listed in the catalogue were withdrawn and six others failed to find buyers. One, a portrait of Hans Gjerd, attracted no bids at all. Sixteen works sold within Sotheby’s estimated price range, while seven commanded higher prices and four went for less than the lowest estimates.

Mapplethorpe dealers generally insist that his market remains strong, but this week’s sales indicate that interest has peaked and that his prices are leveling off if not falling.