While there was much less photography on offer at Christie’s three Contemporary Art sales than at the other houses, the available lots performed well; if three out of the top four lots (measured by high estimate) had sold rather than passed, it would have been a resounding success. As it was, the proceeds for photography fell in the estimate range, the buy in rate was low, and a third of the lots that sold came in above their estimates.

The summary statistics are below:

Total Photography Lots: 25
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $765000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $1103000

Total Lots Sold: 21
Total Lots Bought In: 4
Buy In %: 16.00%
Total Sale Proceeds: $797350

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 2
Low Sold: 2
Low Bought In: 0
Buy In %: 0.00%
Total Low Estimate: $15000
Total Low Sold: $98350

Mid Total Lots: 15
Mid Sold: 14
Mid Bought In: 1
Buy In %: 6.67%
Total Mid Estimate: $428000
Total Mid Sold: $390500

High Total Lots: 8
High Sold: 5
High Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 37.50%
Total High Estimate: $660000
Total High Sold: $308500

90.48% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range, with 33.33% above. There were only two surprises (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate) in this sale: lot 115, Ed Ruscha, A Group of Fourteen Artist’s Books at $96100 (more than 10x the high estimate) and lot 392, Thomas Struth, Dallas Parking Lot, Dallas, 2001 at $80500.

Complete lot by lot results can be found here, here and here.

Christie’s
20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020