It was a tale of two collecting couples as New York's May auctions began yesterday.
In the run-up to the major sales much of the attention was focused on Christie's auction of 39 works from the collection of Leonard and Louise Riggio with hope the pick of their pieces would give the art market a much-needed boost.
That sale brought in $272 million - with a single bidder paying $47.6 million for Mondrian's Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue – a good outcome but not the blockbuster some had hoped for.
Perhaps more indicative of the downbeat mood were Belgian collectors Roger Matthys and Hilda Colle whose Andy Warhol work, Big Electric Chair (1967–68), was estimated to make $30 million as part of the 20th Century Evening Sale but was pulled mid-sale.
The market for the painting is not what is was and Christie's managed to avoid taking a major dent in its sales figures by pulling the Warhol shortly before the sale.
The evening sale as a whole brought in $217 million including a new auction record for Dorothea Tanning when the surrealist’s 1944 painting Endgame sold for $2.35 million, a 64% increase. You can get further insight into this week's sales through our live data page here.
