Art Market Review · year 2017

Art auctions 2017 Review: highlighted by the record-breaking sale of a “Salvator Mundi” attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, we present our personal review of the 2017 Art Auctions season, its superstars, successes, bargains and disappointments.

by G. Fernández – theartwolf.com

The Superstars of the Year

Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci: Salvator Mundi
circa 1490–1500
Sold for $450.3 million at Christie’s New York, November 2017
$450 million. That’s it. Four-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar. Most expensive artwork ever. Nuff said.

Qi Baishi: Twelve Landscape Screens
Executed in 1925
Sold for 931.5 million yuan / $140.8 million at at Poly Beijing, December 2017
Another historic sale that was somewhat overshadowed by the record set by the Leonardo. With this sale, Qi Baishi became the first Chinese artist to join the “$100 million club”.

Jean-Michel Basquiat: Untitled
Painted in 1982
Sold for $110.4 million at Sotheby’s New York, May 2017
Basquiat broke the $100 million barrier when this work was sold to Yusaku Maezawa, the Japanese e-commerce billionaire.

Vincent van Gogh: Laboureur dans un champ
Painted in 1889
Sold for $81.3 million at Christie’s New York, November 2017
Painted in Saint Rémy in September 1889, this work is an almost expressionist tour de force by Van Gogh.

The Successes

Chen Rong: “Six Dragons“
13^th century
Sold for $48,967,500 at Christie’s New York, March 2017
Pre-sale estimate of $1,200,000 to 1,800,000
One of the biggest successes of the decade. Elizabeth Hammer, Chinese painting specialist at Christie’s in New York, described the sale as follows: “on the night of the auction there was intense speculation as to which would fetch a higher price: this scroll or an ancient bronze fangzun. When the scroll came up for sale, several bidders tried to scare off their competitors with huge incremental jumps”.

Chinese Porcelain Wucai Fish Vase
Ming Dynasty
sold for £800,000 / $1,080,000 at Auctioneers Fellows auctions, Birmingham
Pre-sale estimate of £1,800 / $2,430
400 times its pre-sale estimate. Not a bad day for this Birmingham house, right?

A finely carved circular calcite offering table, Egypt
6th dynasty
Sold for £321,000 / $433,000 at Sotheby’s London, November 2017
Pre-sale estimate of £8,000-12,000 / $10,800-16,200
32 times its pre-sale estimate for this work, formerly in the collection of a German private collector

Roeland Savery: “Paradise“
1625
Sold for €810,000 / £724,152 / $977,000 at Walter Ginhart auctions, November 2017
Pre-sale estimate of around €15,000 / $18,000
A new record for an artwork auctioned online in Germany. No information on the buyer has been disclosed.

Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci: Salvator Mundi
circa 1490–1500
Sold for $450.3 million at Christie’s New York, November 2017
Pre-sale estimate of around $100 million
Again? Yes, again. For a sale at this level, quadrupling the starting price is a remarkable milestone.

The Bargains

Mark Rothko: No. 1 (1949)
Painted in 1949
Sold for GBP 10,693,000 / $14,450,000 at Christie’s London, March 2017
It is quite common to see “average” paintings by Rothko selling for $40 million or more. This is not an “average” Rothko. It is a very relevant work from his seminal year of 1949, and -albeit it does not look as “pure” as his paintings from the 50s- it ranks among the most important works by Rothko sold in the last 20 years.

The Disappointments

Jean-Michel Basquiat: ‘Il Duce’
Painted in 1982
Unsold at Christie’s New York, November 2017
Pre-sale estimate of $25 to 35 million
One of the very few “casualties” at Christie’s historical sale of November 2017.

Egon Schiele: ‘Danae‘
Painted in 1909
Withdrawn from Sotheby’s New York, May 2017
Pre-sale estimate of $30 to 40 million
The sale of this painting had created great expectation, as many thought it could mean an important boost for Egon Schiele’s prices, so its withdrawal from the auction was a great disappointment.