NEW YORK, NY.- With major sales taking place this past week in New York, ARTBnk analyzed 525 works from day and evening sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s to evaluate the state of the fine art market today. Within this analysis, we’ll break down how these works performed across market sectors by utilizing presale fair market value—ARTBnk Value—for each individual work of art, determined through ARTBnk's unique AI valuation methodology which combines thousands of quantitative and qualitative data points with systematic regression analysis.

Totals

The 446 lots sold totaled $880,675,615 in sales, 4.8% above their aggregated pre-sale ARTBnk Value totals of $840,726,528, and 2.0% above aggregated auction house buyer's premium adjusted mean estimate totals of $863,236,625.



Outliers

34 (7.6%) of the 446 sold lots achieved sold prices greater than 100% above the buyer’s premium adjusted high estimate. While it’s typical that a handful of lots will achieve results of this level, these outliers are generally not representative of an overall market shift for an artist. When we exclude these outliers from sale totals, the 412 remaining sold lots totaled $828,425,765 in sales, 1.6% above their aggregated pre-sale ARTBnk Value totals of $815,224,610, and -2.2% below aggregated auction house buyer's premium adjusted mean estimate totals of $847,451,625. 8.8% of lots sold for greater than $1m in the high end market qualified as outliers, compared with 8.5% sold between $100k and $1m in the middle market, and 5% sold for less than $100k in the low end market.



The 34 outliers sold totaled $52,249,850 in sales, 104.9% above their aggregated pre-sale ARTBnk Value totals of $25,501,918, and 231.0% above aggregated auction house buyer's premium adjusted mean estimate totals of $15,785,000.



Estimate On Request

5 lots sold in this analysis were offered without published estimates, and therefore were not included along with sale totals measured against buyer’s premium adjusted mean estimates. These 5 works accumulated $309,232,500 in sales, -3.5% below aggregated pre-sale ARTBnk Value totals of $320,448,413.



High End Market

The 114 total lots sold for greater than $1m in the high end market totaled $799,372,300 in sales, 5.4% above their aggregated pre-sale ARTBnk Value totals of $758,544,525, and 1.5% above aggregated auction house buyer's premium adjusted mean estimate totals of $787,284,750. When we exclude outliers, the 104 lots sold in the high end market totaled $753,056,550 in sales, 2.5% above their aggregated pre-sale ARTBnk Value totals of $735,033,606, and -2.6% below aggregated auction house buyer's premium adjusted mean estimate totals of $773,191,000.





Middle Market

The 211 total lots sold in the middle market totaled $75,799,800 in sales, -0.1% below their aggregated pre-sale ARTBnk Value totals of $75,909,768, and 7.5% above aggregated auction house buyer's premium adjusted mean estimate totals of $70,501,250. When we exclude outliers, the 193 lots sold in the middle market totaled $70,152,650 in sales, -5.3% below their aggregated pre-sale ARTBnk Value totals of $74,086,398, and 1.8% above aggregated auction house buyer's premium adjusted mean estimate totals of $68,907,500.







Louis Valtat, Azalées Et Plantes Vertes, oil on canvas, 1918, 28.75 x 23.5 in. Christie’s May 14th Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale. Estimate: $50,000 - $70,000. Sold: $162,500

Low End Market

The 121 total lots sold in the low end market totaled $5,503,515 in sales, -12.3% below their aggregated pre-sale ARTBnk Value totals of $6,272,235, and 1.0% above aggregated auction house buyer's premium adjusted mean estimate totals of $5,450,625. When we exclude outliers, the 115 lots sold in the low end market totaled $5,216,565 in sales, -14.5% below their aggregated pre-sale ARTBnk Value totals of $6,104,606, and -2.6% below aggregated auction house buyer's premium adjusted mean estimate totals of $5,353,125.





Guarantees

The 41 total lots sold with guarantees totaled $276,529,250 in sales, 3.6% above their aggregated pre-sale ARTBnk Value totals of $266,804,412, and -8.7% below aggregated auction house buyer's premium adjusted mean estimate totals of $302,837,250. This is compared to the 405 total lots sold without guarantees which totaled $604,146,365 in sales, 5.3% above their aggregated pre-sale ARTBnk Value totals of $573,922,116, and 7.8% above aggregated auction house buyer's premium adjusted mean estimate totals of $560,399,375. Of note, only one work offered with a guarantee sold well enough to qualify as an outlier, Racquel Reclining Wearing Purple Jumpsuit by Mickalene Thomas. This low rate of high performance couples with the underperformance of guarantees relative to their buyer’s premium adjusted auction house mean estimates. While making up 9.2% of total sold lots, guaranteed works accounted for 31.4% of the total dollar amount sold.






Mickaelene Thomas, Racquel Reclining Wearing Purple Jumpsuit, oil, acrylic, silkscreen, rhinestones, faux pearls, glitter, graphite and flock on wood panel, 2016, 96 x 144 in. Christie’s May 11th 21st Century Evening Sale. Estimate: $400,000 - $600,000 Sold: $1,830,000

Buy-Ins

74 of 525 lots offered failed to sell, for a buy-in rate of 12.4%, with buy-in rates of 8.8% in the high end market, 21.3% in the middle market, and 10.5% in the low end market, respectively.



Repeat Sales

69 sold lots were repeat sales, having previously sold at auction. 76.8% of the repeat sales generated positive returns. The high end market saw 84% generate positive returns, the highest of the three categories. After excluding outlier repeat sales that generated a Compound Annual Return (CAR) of greater than 100%, the high end market also saw the highest median CAR of 6.78%, compared to 4.68% in the middle market and 2.54% in the low end market.



In ARTBnk’s pre-sale analysis of Claude Monet’s Le Bassin aux nymphéas, we illustrated how the performance of the painting as it returned to auction on May 12th would relate to past sales results for the artist. Taking the past 10 years of Monet’s repeat sales data to create a distribution of returns, we generated 3 Compound Annual Returns from the median of the bottom 80% (5.9% CAR), the middle 60% (7.54% CAR), and the top 80% (8.59% CAR) of repeat sale results. Applying these CARs to the initial sale price of Le Bassin aux nymphéas from 2004 and adjusting that value to the present day, we can then examine how the performance of Le Bassin aux nymphéas compares to past results. As illustrated in the graph below, the sale result of $70,353,000 exceeded the top 80% CAR-adjusted value of $68,224,946 while generating a CAR 8.79%.





Claude Monet, Claude Monet, Le Bassin aux nymphéas, oil on canvas, 1917-1919, 39⅜ by 79 in Sotheby’s May 12th Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale. Sold: $70,353,000

The sale price exceeding the $70m mark represents a strong return compared with recent sales performance for Monet, and specifically the Water Lilies series to which Le Bassin aux nymphéas belongs. The work exceeded it’s presale ARTbnk Value of $45,900,676 by 53.3%, further illustrating it’s strong performance while helping to buoy high end market totals in aggregate. Much of the success of the high end market relative to ARTBnk Value can be attributed to the sale result of Le Bassin aux nymphéas.

Conclusion

In aggregate, sale totals exceeded ARTBnk Value based entirely on the performance of the high end market. It was the only market sector to outpace both pre-sale ARTBnk Value and auction house mean estimates after outliers were removed from sale totals, while both the middle and low end markets fell short of aggregated pre-sale ARTBnk Value.