Andreas Gursky easily carried the photographic load at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art auctions in London last week. His five stock exchange images in the Evening sale brought in just under £5.5M in aggregate, and with the help of the Struth Pantheon image at roughly £800K, basically made the rest of the results irrelevant. Even with an overall Buy-In rate near 35%, the Total Sale Proceeds still soared over the pre-sale high estimate.
The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):
| Summary Statistics | |
|---|---|
| Total Lots | 43 |
| Aggregate Pre Sale Low Estimate | £3961000 |
| Aggregate Pre Sale High Estimate | £5503000 |
| Total Lots Sold | 28 |
| Total Lots Bought In | 15 |
| Buy In % | 34.88% |
| Total Sale Proceeds | £7171475 |
Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post):
| Detailed Breakdown | |
|---|---|
| Low Total Lots | 0 |
| Total Low Lots Sold | NA |
| Total Low Lots Bought In | NA |
| Low Buy In % | NA |
| Aggregate High Estimate of Low Lots | £0 |
| Total Proceeds from Low Lots | NA |
| Mid Total Lots | 22 |
| Total Mid Lots Sold | 14 |
| Total Mid Lots Bought In | 8 |
| Mid Buy In % | 36.36% |
| Aggregate High Estimate of Mid Lots | £343000 |
| Total Proceeds from Mid Lots | £250625 |
| Total High Lots | 21 |
| Total High Lots Sold | 14 |
| Total High Lots Bought In | 7 |
| High Buy In % | 33.33% |
| Aggregate High Estimate of High Lots | £5160000 |
| Total Proceeds from High Lots | £6920850 |
The top lot by High estimate was lot 28, Andreas Gursky, Chicago Board of Trade, 1997, estimated at £700000-900000; it sold for £1538500. The top outcome of the two sales was lot 26, Andreas Gursky, Chicago Board of Trade III, 1999-2009, estimated at £600000-800000, sold at £2154500 (image at right, top, via Sotheby’s).
100.00% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There were four surprises in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):
Lot 26, Andreas Gursky, Chicago Board of Trade III, 1999-2009, estimated at £600000-800000, sold at £2154500
Lot 437, Mona Hatoum, Performance Still, 1985-1995, estimated at £6000-8000, sold at £20000 (image at right, middle, via Sotheby’s)
Lot 447, Thomas Struth. Jiangxi Zhong Lu, Shanghai, 1996, estimated at £12000-18000, sold at £40000
Lot 448, Thomas Struth, Nanjing Xi Lu 2, Shanghai, 2002, estimated at £18000-25000, sold at £57500 (image at right, bottom, via Sotheby’s)
Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).
