Oscar Dominguez Leads Sotheby's $4.9m Exquisite Corpus Day Auction in New York

A work by Oscar Dominguez was the headline sale at Sotheby's 'Exquisite Corpus Day Auction' on November 21 in New York.

• The sale totaled $4.91m, exceeding the pre-sale high estimate.

Snapshot of the sale

• 55 works sold totaling $4.91m.
• Estimates totaled: $2.87m (low) and $4.21m (high), excluding premiums.
• The sell-through rate was 100%, so a white-glove sale.

The star lot was: Oscar Dominguez, Le Plus clair du temps (1943), which sold for $889,000, 77% above its $500,000 low estimate. It has been traded once in the past.

The outperformer sold for 6250% above its low estimate. Gerrie Gutmann, Child of the Forest (1951), sold for $50,800 ($800 low estimate). It has not been traded before.

• 42 works, or 76%, sold above their high estimate.
• 5 works, or 9%, sold within their low and high estimate.
• 8 works, or 15%, sold below their low estimate.
• 0 sold with undisclosed estimates.

Auction record

Stanislao Lepri's The Restaurant in the Mouth (1967) sold for $63,500, beating the artist’s previous auction record set in 2007 by $37,100, a 125% rise.

Guaranteed sales

No sales had a guarantee.

Works that did not sell

0 works were bought-in.

Withdrawn before the sale

0 works were withdrawn

Terms and definitions

All results include the fees and premiums added to the price of a work of art when the auctioneer's hammer falls. Sale prices are compared to the auction house’s low estimate, which do not include premiums.

Guarantees: Sometimes an auction house guarantees to pay a seller for a work, regardless of whether the bidding reaches the reserve price, a figure that is typically confidential.

Bought-in: If there are no bids for a work, or if bidding falls short of the reserve price, the lot is unsold or “bought-in”.

Withdrawn: This happens when a seller decides, for whatever reason, to withdraw a work before the bidding begins.

Premiums: Typically a sliding-scale of charges paid in addition to the hammer price by the buyer, plus any other fees.