On March 7th, the famed auction house Christie's will host an auction in London, titled: "20th / 21st Century: London Evening Sale".
Paintings by many legendary artists will be up for auction. This market is a duel between the following two works:
VINCENT VAN GOGH - Naaiende vrouw (Woman Sewing): https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-6469724?ldp_breadcrumb=back&intobjectid=6469724&from=salessummary&lid=1
ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER - Zwei Mädchen mit Badewanne (recto); Sitzender schwarzhaariger Mädchenakt (verso) : https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-6469768?ldp_breadcrumb=back&intobjectid=6469768&from=salessummary&lid=1
Both were given the same initial estimates by Christie's: GBP 2,000,000 – GBP 3,000,000. This market resolves to the painting which the Christie's website lists with a higher sale value at the auction.
Resolution details:
Here is an example from a past auction: www.christies.com/lot/lot-6467212. This painting by Gentileschi (a personal fav) has a "price realised" of USD 982,800. This is the number I will use—whatever is displayed by the auction page.
If I am unable to determine which painting sold for more, then this market must resolve N/A.
Note: I am not an expert on this website, so know that it's possible I haven't accounted for a difficult edge case before placing bets.
If one painting has a listed sale price, while the other fails to sell (e.g. fails to meet the reserve price), this market resolves in favor of the painting that sold.
If either painting is withdrawn before the auction, then this market resolves N/A.
If they sell for the exact same amount, they each resolve at 50%.
If any scenarios for resolution are unclear, please ask.
Here are the paintings.
VINCENT VAN GOGH - Naaiende vrouw (Woman Sewing):
ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER:
As I understand it, this work is a double-sided canvas. Here are the two sides.
Sitzender schwarzhaariger Mädchenakt (verso):
Zwei Mädchen mit Badewanne (recto):
1,000🏅 Top traders
| # | Trader | Total profit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ṁ427 | |
| 2 | Ṁ53 | |
| 3 | Ṁ42 | |
| 4 | Ṁ29 | |
| 5 | Ṁ13 |
@traders Auctions are back! This time, there are three:
The provocative street artist Banksy versus the French impressionist James Tissot.
A duel between two Nepalese paintings from Senator Dianne Feinstein's private collection.
The legendary Japanese printmaker Hokusai versus the pop art master, Andy Warhol.
I also made a dashboard to track all of them, although we'll see if I can find enough interesting auctions to keep it populated. Have fun, bet away, and let me know if you spot any mistakes.
The closing hammer rings out, and the auction is complete (full livestream here)., with a staggering total of GBP 137,699,300 (actually, I'm not sure if that's any good or not—anecdotally it seems like many sold for below the estimate, although I haven't seen any news coverage just yet).
I can't find bid histories, but seems the result wasn't close. VAN GOPH went first, and ended quickly with the hammer price barely reaching the lower 2M estimate. KIRCHNER went much later, and immediately drew a proper bidding war, surpassing the high estimate. KIRCHNER wins by a landslide (IMO a just result—staring at it more while making the market I grew tired of the Van Goph & started to enjoy the Kirchner a bit).
Congratulations to Kirchner! (or whatever rich guy sold the work I guess).
VAN GOPH: Price realised - GBP 2,460,000
KIRCHNER: Price realised - GBP 3,791,000
I plan to resolve this in favor of KIRCHNER tomorrow, so speak now if there are any concerns.
I find these auction markets fun, so I'll run them again, but I want to maintain a consistent quality and at a glance couldn't find any upcoming lots that were sufficiently promising. So I'll probably try again in a week or so (LMK if anything catches your eye, or feel free to make your own).
@Ziddletwix the major auctions are seasonal - next big ones will be in the summer. The Kirchner was by far the better picture (IMHO!), so I'm glad it 'won'.
@MichaelSavage Got it! (And thanks again for your clarifying comments—very helpful!)
Yup makes sense that the next "big one" might not be for a while. But luckily I don't think we'd need an auction anywhere near this scale. It's neat that there were dozens of notable works here (there just wasn't really time to run other markets). But I think anything that passes the much lower bar of: "similar price estimates + two artists with at least mild name recognition" could make for a fun market. (I'm sure interesting art is sold every week but I bet some mild name recognition helps grab the attention of the typical Manifolder like me).
So even if they're "just" mid 6 figures, I'm hopeful there will be some neat options from e.g. April Old Masters or Modern British & Irish Evening Sale. (Admittedly might be wildly overestimating the quality/size of those sales, but will try to keep an eye out for when the lots pop up). It's been fun to learn a tiny bit about this world.
@Ziddletwix With no concerns raised, resolving this market in favor of KIRCHNER (congratulations to him).
This was fun, but I want to keep the quality of these markets ~fairly high, so I don't have a follow-up quite yet (waiting until there's an exciting enough auction that I spot). In a few weeks I expect to make some new auction markets, and I'll comment here =)
