Yesterday at Christie’s, the total sale was more than $334 million with an average lot value of $3.24 million. The sell-through rate was a very well-managed 93% with 36% of the lots selling above the estimate range. Unfortunately, a substantial number of works, 23 of them or 22%, were sold at compromise prices below the published estimates.
The aggregate hammer ratio for the sales at Christie’s was 1.06 which signals a restrained market or a balance between seller expectations and buyer’s demand. (The hammer ratio is the total hammer price divided by the aggregate low estimate and measures the the strength of bidding.)
Buyers and sellers have clearly caught up to each other after 2020’s raging market. One thing visible from this chart is that buyers remain aggressive for works priced below $1m. These works tend to be from a range of "emerging names."
Above $5 million there was only one work bid significantly above estimates. That was the very strong price for Picasso’s etching “Le Repas Frugal” that made a £6 million selling price over a £1.5 million low estimate.
Below $5 million there were four works with notable bidding. Those were works by Peter Doig, Flora Yuknovich, Nicolas Party, Jadé Fadojutimi and Amoako Boafo.
Under a million dollars, that number rose to more than a dozen works from names like Ewa Juszkiewicz, Victor Man, Joel Mesler, Edgar Plans, Emmanuel Taku, Scott Kahn, Billy Childish, Ye Lingan, Genieve Figgis, Angel Otero Shara Hughes and Serge Attukwei Clottey.
For more details on the works and their results, please view the individual sale’s results within the LiveArt app.
