A Rothko made $85.8m in New York. Will Christie's half-year sales rise with it?
Mark Rothko's Brown and Blacks in Reds (1957) sold for $85.8m at Sotheby's, leading a $433.1m evening sale, more than double a year earlier.
What happened
The Mnuchin-estate Rothko sold for $85.8m, leading Sotheby’s $433.1m contemporary evening sale — resolution recorded against the house’s published results.
Sotheby’s evening sale in New York made $433.1m. It was led by Mark Rothko’s Brown and Blacks in Reds (1957), from the estate of the dealer and banker Robert Mnuchin. The painting sold at $74m before fees, against an estimate of $70m to $100m. With fees it reached $85.8m, the second-highest price ever paid for a Rothko at auction.
The trade had called this season a turning point. In May, works with combined estimates of $1.8bn to $2.6bn came up for sale at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Phillips and Bonhams. Sotheby’s low estimate alone was 70% above its total from .
Christie’s and Sotheby’s shared the season’s big estates. Christie’s took the Marian Goodman collection, led by a Gerhard Richter estimated at $35m to $50m. Sotheby’s took Mnuchin’s.
The Rothko fell just short of the artist’s record, the $86.9m paid for Orange, Red, Yellow in 2012. Sotheby’s sale still more than doubled the same sale a year earlier, which made $186.1m.
Sources: Sotheby's published results, The New York Times
The Pattern
After a slump, big one-owner collections often restart the market. They bring top works, often with a price guaranteed in advance, and draw back buyers who ignored two years of weaker sales. These collections almost always do well. We looked at the last five big seasons to see whether sales across the whole season rose with them.
Show the other 3 cases
The Read
History is split on the season, even when the star lot does well. The case for a recovery is supply. The two down years came mostly from owners who kept great works off the market because estimates were low. The Mnuchin and Goodman estates brought such works back. The Rothko drew bids well past its low estimate, and Sotheby’s evening total more than doubled from a year earlier. That is what the start of a recovery looks like.
There are reasons for doubt. Almost every major lot in May had a price guaranteed before the sale, so the top prices show deals made in advance as much as bidding in the room. Lots under $1m, which make most of the houses’ sales, stayed weak through spring. Summer is the quietest season, so an 18% chance of another $50m lot before mid-August is generous. In the last five big seasons, sales rose across the season only three times, and one great Rothko night can come with a flat half-year.
Christie’s half-year figure, due in the last weeks of July, is the first number for the whole season that can settle it.
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