The time-honoured fruits of attractively low estimates
The revival of interest in Old Master paintings took another small step forward last week.
While sales of 19th-century European art failed to live up to expectations on both sides of the Atlantic, a minor sale of Old Master paintings at Sotheby’s in New York, expected to raise $5.5 million (£4.1million), raised an impressive $9.8 million (£7.3million). The key to the sale’s success hinged on a combination of two things. First, it saw an unusual input of works deaccessioned by US Museums, including The Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The San Diego Museum of Art and, contentiously, The Berkshire Museum, whose sales were met with protests. Impressed by the museum provenance, buyers paid up to five
times the estimated prices.
The other was 23 still life paintings by artists influenced by Caravaggio. A big draw here was that each lot was to be sold without a reserve minimum price,
so that something with a $100,000 estimate could, in theory, be sold for $10,000.
As a result, the bidders piled in. One of the longest bidding battles came for a still life of fruit by the early-17th-century Milanese artist Panfilo Nuvolone, which more than tripled estimates at a record $447,000 (£333,235) – a fourfold increase on the price the seller paid in 2004.
Which all goes to show, high estimates keep the buyers away; low ones, especially if being sold by a museum, get them going.