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Two thousand people showed up at the Drouot on 14-15 April for the auction of 400 modern art works from the Breton collection—and got thoroughly carried away. Total turnover for the three sessions was EUR23 million, well beyond the experts’ most optimistic estimates of EUR16 million.
Excitement gripped the floor from the first lot on 14 April, a small and anonymous naïve painting showing a castle on a hill estimated at EUR500-600. When it went for EUR18,000 the tone was set and it was clear this sale was going to be something special. Lot after lot went for two, three, ten times their estimates and sometimes more. Fifty times in the case of Yves Laloy’s Les Petits Pois Sont Verts…Les Petits Poissons Rouges (Little Peas are Green…Little Fish are Red, EUR80,000). The first session of modern paintings raised nearly EUR13.2 million (before fees). The most optimistic estimates had been for EUR11 million.
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The day’s top sales were Femme (Woman)by Hans ARP and Le piège (The Trap) by Joan MIRO . Both were knocked down at EUR2.5 million, which was the highest price ever paid for an Arp (see AMI of 13 March 2003). The lot was then pre-empted by the Musée National d’Art Moderne under the French law that allows the state to step in and save works of national importance (paying the last price bid). The day saw four world records. A deeply sexual Religieuse Italienne fumant la cigarette (Italian nun smoking a cigarette) by Clovis TROUILLE was bought for EUR240,000. There was also a record for Georges RIBEMONT-DESSAIGNES , whose Le Grand Musicien (Great Musician) was sold for EUR100,000. La Vierge et les Deux Anges ou la Madone aux Vers Luisants (The virgin and Two Angels or Our lady of the Glow-Worms), a gouache on paper by Charles FILIGER , was sold for EUR170,000. The other world record was for the oil on canvas Espantapajaros (Scarecrow) by Maruja Mallo for EUR260,000, triple its high estimate.
The mood was now bubbling and the hammers were warm. The euphoria continued the next day as bidders threw themselves equally enthusiastically on a set of less prestigious and more varied lots. They were bidding for bits of history more than works of art. A few lithographs aside, small items estimated at EUR100-300 all went for more than EUR1,500. André BRETON ’s drawings and collages vastly overreached the most optimistic forecasts. From lot 133 to lot 190 the bidding floor went wild, fighting over the slightest sketch. Lot 4, 190, Personnage Fantastique (Fantasy Character), a drawing hardly bigger than a stamp estimated at EUR100-200 sold for EUR4,500. Arp had another fine sale on the second day when his Point Virgule (semi colon, 1927) sold for EUR880,000. The total turnover for all works auctioned on 15 April was EUR9.7 million , double the total high estimates.
The Paris art market has held up well through the war in Iraq. The upcoming New York sales on 6 and 7 May will tell us whether the same is true on the other side of the Atlantic.
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