Picasso and Monet too expensive?

Although Picasso is still the world’s best generator of million-dollar auction results, collectors are apparently not that hungry for his works as to push the bidding to any price. Indeed, while the offer of top-quality Picasso works continues to flow, buyers remain discerning.
This was clearly visible at Sotheby’s 3 May sale in New York: of the 32 lots estimated at $1m or more, only 17 actually got beyond that threshold and only 4 of the 10 works by Pablo PICASSO presented that evening went beyond their low estimates.
The star work of the sale, Picasso’s Femmes lisant (deux personnages), only just reached $19m against a low estimate of $25m. Before the sale, encouraged by the London result in February of £22.5m for La lecture ($36.2m, double its estimate), optimists were predicting a better result for Femme lisant than the $35m high estimate!

And the “Picasso effect” also underperformed for three other major works in the Sotheby’s catalogue: Couple à la guitare sold for $8.5m vs. a low estimate of $10m; then Femme nue assise contre une draperie and Vue d’une fenêtre were bought in against low estimates of $2.5m and $5m respectively.
In total, 8 of the 10 Picasso works presented that evening sold for $51.6m, accounting for nearly a third of the sale’s total revenue, but substantially below the auctioneer’s expectations of between $60m and $85m from the ten works. Last year, at the same New York sale, Christie’s generated $127m from the Picasso signature.

The Impressionist & Modern Art sale at Sotheby’s on 3 May presented 59 prestige works generating a final total of $149m. At the last market peak (May 2008), the same sale generated $208m from just 48 adjudications.
This year’s revenue total was relatively good when compared to the $52m from the same sale in 2009, but was still substantially lower than the announced figures: expecting a total of between $158m and $231m from the evening, Sotheby’s did not even reach its lower total… an outcome that has not occurred since 2009, at the bottom of the market dip.

The “Monet effect” expected in London
Another major disappointment from the May sales was Claude MONET, the second pillar – along with Picasso – of these annual prestige sales. Sellers and auctioneers alike appear to have substantially over-estimated the market’s appetite for the leading French Impressionist’s work… The result: Monet’s superb 1914-1917 Iris mauves, actually failed to sell. Christie’s presented the work with a $15-20m estimate having sold the same piece for $3.5m in 1997. The 2011 estimate implied a +320% value accretion for this painting that had already produced the best result for an Iris painting by Monet. His Les Peupliers received a more enthusiastic reception, tripling the price it sold for in November 2000 ($6.4m, Christie’s NY), although the $20m it generated this year was only equivalent to the auctioneer’s low estimate.
The pulse of the market is expected to accelerate in June with the Christie’s London sale of part of the stock of works belonging to the gallery of the famous art dealer Ernst Beyeler who died in February 2010. The stock contains, amongst other works, a Nymphéas painting by Monet. Remember that Monet’s Le bassin aux nymphéas (1919) fetched $71m in June 2008 at Christie’s in London.