Monet-spinner boosts £63m sale

The art market was left in confusion at Christie's when its big London winter auction of Impressionist and Modern Pictures turned into a totally unexpected £63 million roaring success.

Bidders flung money about as if the credit crunch did not exist and the market meltdown in New York last November never happened.

Monet's 1873 portrait of his wife Camille in long grass sold for £11,241,250, three more paintings passed £5 million and the auction was a high 88 per cent sold by value. Nine of 47 lots went over high estimates, 20 more hit targets and private bidders scooped the top 10 lots against the art trade.

Dealers last night were baffled. Was it a madness, a miracle, a lurch from money into art or just a pause in the world's financial storm?

"That's a very good question," replied Ed Dolman, Christie's chief executive, clearly desperate to know the answer himself.

"I'd like to think tonight shows a new strength. Yes, there was much more competitive bidding than last time" He stopped and thought, then told it how it was.

"I'll be honest. I must say I am very pleasantly surprised by the total, by the percentage sold and by this very encouraging result which should send out a message that confidence is coming back."

In short, Christie's did not see this coming. The auction was cleverly loaded with popular, mainstream pictures which buyers can resell easily —exactly half were attractive women by Monet, Renoir, Van Dongen, Modigliani, Toulouse-Lautrec and Matisse.

There were no tough, ugly, unusual and mentally challenging images. It offered juicy temptations in works that had never been at auction before. Estimates were helpfully set at about 20 per cent down on last summer's record levels.

The mix was enough to tempt out more money than anyone guessed at. In a few cases, prices hit the highs of last summer which was the summit to the tremendous price climb of 2005-08, an ascent far steeper than anything on Wall Street.

Six bidders pushed Modigliani's tender 1918 portrait of two sisters over high estimate to £6,537,250. It was bought by the sale's Mr Big; he was also the buyer of the £11 million Monet. Christie's did not name him. It was not all roses. The delicate Monet was £3 million down on the crazed price playboy Prince Jefri of Brunei gave for it in 1988.

Toulouse-Lautrec's L'Abandon, a peaceful scene in a brothel of two tarts relaxing between clients on a bed, made its estimate at £6,201,250 but less than its value at auction in 2000. Vuillard's beautiful, two-dimensional portrait in reds and greens of two lady couturiers stitching dresses attracted but a single bid to sell at £5,081,250 when the estimate was £6 million to £8 million.

It was the rarest "Nabi" picture of 1890 but a bit too rare for a market clearly interested in "safe haven" pictures and sculptures.

Generally, the atmosphere was so different from the disastrous New York sales after the failure of Lehman Brothers last autumn as to make bidders wonder if the world had changed.

Has the market stabilised at a new, lower level? "Definitely," said Bond Street dealer Matthew Green of Richard Green Fine Art. "But very good things are doing as well as six months ago."

"Which would you rather have?" asked Mayfair dealer Alan Hobart, who bought an early Marino Marini sculpture for £769,250. "Your money in an uncertain future at a bank or a Picasso?"

Tonight at Sotheby's is a new test: the first big Contemporary Art auction since Damien Hirst's £111 million bonanza last September and the market catastrophe in New York.