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From ; Rehl Galleries. Ins

Art Market Update

I know that we are all wondering: how long can this market continue? Boy do I wish I could answer that question. What I can tell you is that in the realm of 19th century paintings, there is a dramatic decrease in the number of fine quality paintings coming to the market ... while on the other hand, there are many new people looking to acquire these works. The most recent sales in New York, this past month, attest to the serious lack of quality material appearing at public auction and the increase in interested buyers . many of whom seemed to care very little about the work's quality or condition.

The two major sale rooms had their main fall 19th century sales in late October . and it appeared that, other than a few handfuls of nice works, they were scraping the sides and bottom of the barrel. These sales were filled with more overpriced, overcleaned, poor conditioned, late, and what I would characterize as ... "are you sure the artist actually painted that", works than one would care to view. There were over-cleaned Corots, Bouguereaus and Seignacs ... some of which carried ridiculous estimates. Paintings by Zampighi & Reggianini that I have a hard time believing were actually painted by those artists ... and if in fact they were ... the artist should have destroyed them!

This was a serious case of too few good, many more bad and as many ugly works . and buyers showed up and bought a tremendous amount of the offerings for, at times, what I would characterize as unbelievable prices.

Among the good were L'hermitte's August . a wonderfully light and energetic pastel which carried and estimate of $40 - $60,000 and sold for $205,000 . worth every penny; William Bouguereau's Jeunesse made $2.39 million, a reasonable price for such an important work, while his Glaneuse brought $1.83 million (against a $700 - $1 million estimate) . a big price for a very nice, but not major, work; Alexei Harlamoff's small portrait of Sonia (est. $100 - $150,000) brought $385,000; Arthur von Ferraris' The Blind Man, 1892 made a real impressive $937,000 . the interesting note here is that some 15 plus years ago we sold an 1889 version of this painting for less that $40,000 (if you search our site you can see an image of the painting). And top honors for the series of sales went to Gustave Courbet for his well painted Le veau blanc . a side view of a white calf . estimated at $320 - $380,000 - the new owner forked over $2.505 million for that side of veal!

Among the bad, and there were many to choose from, were Corot's overcleaned Les Saules a la Pointe de L'ile - estimated at $250,000-$350,000 - that someone actually paid $397,000 for; his seriously brown colored Les Vacheres a la Fontaine - estimated at $600 - $800,000 - luckily did not find a buyer; however his rather thin Fontainebleau, les chenes de Mont Ussy estimated at $180,000 - $220,000 made $217,000. There was a really poor conditioned (extensive pigment separation) Henry J. Boddington that found a buyer at $25,000; Bouguereau's condition issued Le voeu a Sainte-Anne-d'Auray carried an extremely optimistic (in my opinion) estimate of $700 - $900,000 and made a ridiculous $1.83 million!!! Guess that shows you what I know . or maybe what the buyer did not know?

As for the ugly . a seriously ugly conditioned John Linnell (flattened in the relining process) carried and estimate of $125 - $175,000 (come on) and thankfully did not sell; a real late, and ugly, Zampighi - estimate $20 - $30,000 - brought $28,000; while V. Reggianini's horrible, yes horrible, The Piano Recital carried an estimate of $150,000 - $200,000 and I am sad to report, found a buyer at $169,000; and Fred Morgan's dreadful See-Saw, estimate $200 - $300,000, happily found no takers.

When all was said and done, almost $39 million worth of 19th century art changed hands (about the price of a really nice Monet or a pretty good Picasso). Of the 555 works offered 346 found new homes. Quite an impressive total if one takes into account the problems with the works that were offered. In my opinion, the unsold rate of 37% (or 209 works) should have been much higher. People . doesn't condition and quality count for something!?