Christie's Frieze Week Sales Hold Firm

London may be losing internationally mobile residents after changes to non-dom tax breaks, but Christie’s marquee sales held firm.

The auction house’s five sales, including Impressionist, modern, and contemporary art, during Frieze week totaled just over $334m, including fees—57% above the historic average—with the number of lots also up 14%.

Although Christie’s achieved its highest London total in four years, it scored a B on the HENI Auction Index when other key metrics were factored in, a slight improvement on its B- rating 12 months ago, when sales totaled $203m.

The 20th/21st Century Sale on October 14 was led by a Nazi-looted painting. Wassily Kandinsky's 1907 landscape, Das bunte Leben, was restituted to the heirs of the German-Jewish collector Hedwig Lewenstein-Weyermann in 2023. After a bidding battle, the painting, which had a guarantee, sold for $41.7m with fees, 75% above its low estimate.

Christie’s results were boosted by one consignor, the founder of the Monsoon retail chain, Peter Simon. The single-collection evening and day sales totaled $155.7m, accounting for more than 46% of the auction house’s overall total last week.

In total, 126 works were backed by guarantees. The share backed by strong guarantees was up more than 12 percentage points on comparable sales, but those backed by weak guarantees, which sold for near their low estimate, was also up by more than 7 percentage points.

Other metrics contributing to Christie’s HENI Auction Index score included the share of works that sold above their estimates. Again, the picture was mixed. The proportion selling above high estimates was in line with the historic average, while the share selling above low estimates rose by nearly 2 percentage points.

Some high-profile works failed to find buyers, including Cy Twombly’s untitled 1971 canvas, which carried a low estimate of nearly $4m. The share of works bought-in was up by 2 percentage points while those withdrawn, including a 2012 Anselm Kiefer work, was up by just over 1 percentage point.

Half a dozen auction records were set last week, including those for Liubov Popova ($10m, including fees) and Bridget Riley. Her 1979 work Streak 2 sold for $6.9m with fees. Both works were backed by guarantees and came from Simon’s collection.

It was a good week for adopted Londoners Gilbert & George. The besuited artists’ early work Dead Boards No. 19 soared above its low estimate, selling for $203,100. The 1976 photographic work was backed by a guarantee and had changed hands only once before. It was acquired from the artists by Ileana Sonnabend from their show at her New York gallery the same year.

Methodology: for how the HENI Auction Index classifies sales, see here.