The Warhol Test: Christies Tonight

It is difficult to gauge the extent to which the anonymous buyers who acquired Andy Warhol's Marilyn (1962) a dozen years ago and Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (1962) 24 years ago, both of which are up at auction this evening at Christie's sale of Post-War and Contemporary Art, were motivated by the prospect of seeing returns on their investments. Christie's pre-sale estimates for the two works—$4,000,000-6,000,000 and $30,000,000–50,000,000, respectively—suggest that the sellers should expect healthy returns; the original purchase prices were $332,500 for the former and $264,000 for the latter.
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The Market Pays Homage to Louise Bourgeois

 At the time of her death on May 31, Louise Bourgeois was the 16th most valuable living artist based on the combined auction value of her works. Among the 5,000 most valuable works of art ever sold at auction, Bourgeois had nine works. It is often the case with important artists that the market value of their artistic legacies grow consistently after their deaths, because of the sudden jolt of interest and the sudden cessation of the artist's output.
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The Currency of Russian Portraits

While much of the art world's attention this month is focused on Art Basel and the major upcoming Impressionist and Modern sales, last week's sales of Russian art in London brought impressive results across genres and periods.

Alexander Yakovlev's Titi and Naranghe, Daughters of Chief Eki Bondo (1926) was the week's most expensive lot, selling at Sotheby's on June 7 for £2,505,250 ($3,621,840), or more than three times the pre-auction estimate of £700,000–900,000.
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Big Family, Big Bargain

Auction houses generally err on the side of aggressive pricing with their pre-sale estimates. It is a rare day that we find a work seriously under-valued when compared with the track records of similar works by an artist. But such appears to be the case with a work by Zhang Xiaogang, The Big Family No. 6 (1997), which will be auctioned at this Saturday's sale of Asian Contemporary Art and Chinese 20th Century Art at Christie's Hong Kong.
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