Christie's Weis Sale Was a Boutique Affair

The Weis sale at Christie’s was a boutique affair. Eighteen works were on offer from the collection carefully built by the late supermarket billionaire Robert Weis and his wife Patricia “Patsy” Ross Weis, 16 of which found buyers on the night.

The sale on November 17 got New York’s marquee week rolling. It was led by the Weises’ Rothko, No. 31 (Yellow Stripe), which fetched $62m with fees, a $39m Picasso and a Matisse that achieved $32m. All were backed by guarantees and exceeded their high estimates. The sale only scored a C- on the HENI Auction Index, however.

Despite totaling $218m, generating twice as much revenue as the typical single-collection sale at Christie’s or Sotheby’s, the Weis sale ranked towards the lower end of comparable sales.

While the Weis sale did not soar, it was hardly a flop. The auction was on a par with the S.I. Newhouse sale at Christie’s in May 2023, when 16 of the late publishing mogul’s works went to auction, including his Francis Bacon self-portrait, which fetched $34.6m, with fees.

The HENI Auction Index is a benchmark of auction performance based on 10 plus metrics. So, it takes into account a wider range of indicators than total sales or sell-through rates. The latter was 88% in the Weis sale.

The percentages of lots selling above their low and high estimates were lower than usual, especially the latter: 38% versus a typical 48%. This dragged the average hammer to mid-estimate ratio down to 1.1, 40% below typical.

None of the Weis lots were withdrawn, but the bought-in rate was 11%, above a typical 8%. Works that did not find buyers included the Weises’ Franz Kline, Placidia (1961), which had a $10m low estimate.

The absence of new artists’ auction records also contributed to its C- score on the HENI Auction Index.

The percentages of lots with strong and weak guarantees jumped to five times the usual numbers, cancelling out each others' effect on the overall score.

On the more positive side, the average number of bidders was in line with comparable sales, with 3 bidders per lot on average.

Unshowy and discreet, the Weises kept the size and quality of their collection largely private, hanging it in their Pennsylvania home.

The sale on November 17, titled “The Collection of Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis”, was not the only auction at Christie’s last week featuring their art. Its Impressionist and modern art sale on November 18 included 12 Weis lots and its post-war and contemporary sale on November 20 had 26 works from their collection.

Adding more of those works to the Weis Collection auction could have boosted its score to a B+. A bigger collection sale would perhaps have paid dividends at the start of a marquee week.

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