Phillips Looks Back to the Future

Sixty six million years after it walked the earth, a Triceratops nicknamed Cera made its New York debut. The novelty lot in Phillips’ modern and contemporary art auction did not upstage more conventional works but it helped boost the company’s bottom line, and its HENI Auction Index score.

Phillips’ index score improved from C- to C in 2025 even though its total sales of $358m and the 6,640 lots offered across the year were both lower than in 2024.

The HENI Auction Index is a unique benchmark of performance based on more than 10 metrics and so provides a more nuanced analysis of a sale or sales than looking at only total revenue or sell-through rate.

While total sales remained significantly below average at Phillips, the number of lots offered was still significantly above the norm.

The auction house continued a trend, now at least five years old, of offering more lower-valued works.

The Triceratops was among its $5m plus lots, when fees were added. Other big-ticket works of art included Francis Bacon’s Study for Head of Isabel Rawsthorne and George Dyer (1967), which sold for $16m with fees, pursued by three bidders.

On the same marquee night in New York, Joan Mitchell’s untitled 1957 abstract fetched $14.3m with fees.

The percentages of works selling above low/high estimates were stable relative to last year and remained below average.

Also, the average hammer to mid estimate ratio was in line with past years.

Phillips’ index score was partly boosted by the fall in the percentage of lots bought-in. It remained significantly below average.

The auction house played to its strength in photography in May and again in November. In the spring, Los Alamos set a new auction record for William Eggleston, when a print fetched $1.88m.

In October, Ginkgo Leaves, New York, 1990, set a new auction record for Irving Penn, selling for $567,600, a 7% rise.

The romantic image of two leaves from a tree planted in 1950 at his Long Island home to mark his marriage to the model and later sculptor Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn was part of a single-artist sale organized in partnership with the photographer’s foundation.

On the eve of the auction house’s 230th anniversary year, Phillips continues to innovate. This year, it incentivised collectors to bid ahead of an auction by reducing its buyers’ fee for early birds.

Harry Phillips, who parlayed his experience as James Christie’s clerk into founding his own auction house in London in 1796, would surely have approved.

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