Boston’s Skinner just held an April sale of Chinese works of art that brought in $3.2m with numerous items selling far beyond estimates:

• a beautiful hanging scroll depicting branches attributed to Qi Baishi exceeding its estimate high of $500, selling for $65,175. Other scrolls and paintings that performed well included a Chinese fan painting of a landscape, which sold for $41,475; a matted painting of a lady bug that went for $41,475; a framed fan with the painted image of a man in a boat on a river that brought $31,995; and a hanging scroll with the image of a Chang Jiang river landscape that sold for $28,440.
• A disc-shaped, copper red and underglaze blue flask from the 18th century was the auction’s top selling lot, exceeding the presale estimate of $25,000 to go for $270,000. This flask depicts a leaping full-face dragon encircled with a “flaming pearl” and a Qianlong mark is found on the base.
• a 17th century libation cup depicting several chilong, sold for $67,375, and a 19th century libation cup in the form of a lotus that sold for $14,220.
• a bottle-form vase from the K’ang-hsi period. The vase exceeded its estimate high of $15,000 selling for $79,625. Made from polychrome enamel on bronze with a turquoise blue ground, it came to Skinner from the collection of Robert M. Hoi and had previously been purchased at the American Art Association sale on February 18, 1911.
• Other notable pieces of cloisonne bringing high prices included an 18th century censer decorated with scrolling lotus flowers and leaves, marked with “Xuan De Nian Zhi Se” at the base, which sold for $24,885.00; a pair of cloisonne vases in the “nui tou zun” shape depicting the story of “He Lu Tong Chun” that brought $33,180; a pair of cloisonne pagodas that sold for $29,625; and a court necklace container decorated with fu, lu, and shou seal script characters that went for $27,255.
• a beautifully crafted Chinese Huanghuali table that brought $41,475, exceeding its pre-sale high estimate of $1,200. Other featured pieces that brought top prices include a Huanghuali settee, which sold for $23,700; a Huanghuali dressing table that went for $18,960; a Hunaghuali folding armchair that sold for $14,220; and a 19th century blackwood display cabinet that brought $11,850.

Demand for Fine Asian Works of Art Remains Strong; Skinner Auction Grosses $3.2M (MarketWatch)

A recent post by Artvest Partners suggested that there is an astounding amount of art pledged as collateral against loans right now. A sign of just how much momentum the art loan business has gained with the dramatic recovery of the art market:

In consultation with several industry leaders, Artvest estimates the current size of the pre-dominantly US-based art financing market to be in the range of US $7 billion and growing.

Artvest’s Michael Plummer, who came up with this number after speaking with several principal figures in the art loan business, did a little further back-of-the-envelope analysis at our request. If $7bn is out on loan (with twice that amount likely to be held as collateral), what would be the revenue stream for the art loan business. The answer was suprising:

It comes out to $498,750 million, or a blended rate of 7.125%. The reason the number is not higher is that a majority of loans are through private banks which lend at rates between 2.5% and 3.5%. My numbers include estimates on origination and arranging fees (upfront fees ranging between 0.5 – 2%)

The Truth About Art Financing – A Two-Tier System (Artvest)

Apparently Clare McAndrew’s annual report on the art market was published over the weekend by TEFAF. Although there is no link to the report itself on TEFAF’s site, the fair does publish some key points from the report, including the information that sales rose 7% in 2011 to €46.1bn (which is still 4% below the peak of 2007):

∎ The art market grew over 575% from its lowest point in 1991 (just under US$10 billion) to its highest in 2007 (US$66 billion/€48.1 billion).

∎ The Modern and Contemporary sectors combined to account for nearly 70% of the fine art market. Both continued a strong recovery in 2011, leading them to levels in excess of the boom of 2007-2008.

∎ The Chinese art and antiques auction sector was the strongest growing market worldwide with a dramatic rise of 177% in 2010 and a further 64% in 2011.

∎ The global art market continued to recover in 2011, increasing by 7% to €46.1 billion, an increase of 63% since the market crisis of 2009. The volume of transactions also increased by 5% to 36.8 million.

∎ China overtook the US for the first time in 2011 to become the largest art and antiques market worldwide with a share of 30% based on both auction and dealer sales.

China Overtakes US to Become World’s Largest Art and Antiques Market (TEFAF.com)

WNYC asks an interesting question about the relative prices of pre-war Manhattan apartments and important works of art. The NYC Economic Development Corporation’s Stephen Giachetti did a study comparing the top real estate prices in the city with the top works of art sold in 2011 in New York. You can see their chart above. While you digest that, let’s see what the real estate folks have to say about the relationship between art and real estate:

Here’s Corcoran’s Sharon Baum on the real estate view of the issue:

Does it make sense to you that a Picasso could be worth the same as a six bedroom on Fifth Avenue?

Well, both have a lot in common, especially if you’re talking about pre-war apartments on Fifth Avenue. Obviously, there cannot be any more pre-war luxury, six-room luxury apartments on Park Avenue because what there is is what there is. And when you have a Rembrandt or a Picasso, what there is, there is, and there can’t be any more. So both of them have a lot in common.

So does a taste for art tend to go hand in hand with a taste for expensive real estate?

Most times it does and it can be contemporary art or it can be the masters, but most of my clients for these major apartments are also major collectors. They go to Art Basel, they go to all the auctions. They’re there.

For example, I sold the Brooke Astor apartment. Well, Brooke Astor had beautiful art. The people who bought the apartment were a much different age bracket than Brooke Astor, but they’re big art collectors.

When an expensive apartment changes hands, does the buyer sometimes purchase the art on the walls? 

Never. Oftentimes people visiting a property will say, “Would they be willing to sell any of their art? Would they sell those instead of having them go to auction?” but they never, never, never, ever stay. And usually nothing is for sale because it’s either going to family members or it’s going to auction.

That Picasso? Worth About as Much as a Fifth Avenue 5-Bedroom (WNYC.org)

The Armory Show is this week. Just in time for another art market screed from Felix Salmon. This time Felix is upset that Jonathan Binstock of Citibank’s art advisory released a report about Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild and their emergence as an a blue-chip art asset.

There’s nothing wrong with Salmon’s skepticism about investing in art. But there are some serious lapses in logic and intellectual judgment in Salmon’s piece:

Remember that when we’re looking at extremely expensive art, we’re looking, pretty much by definition, at the art which is most coveted by incredibly rich men. (That’s why paintings of women have always sold for much higher sums than paintings of men.) And while your typical incredibly rich man might well have a lot of sophistication when it comes to arbitraging the capital structure of potential takeover targets, his taste in art is most likely to run very much in line with Matisse’s famous quote about how a painting should be like a comfortable armchair.

Salmon has the terrible habit of bigotry toward the wealthy. (It’s also a bit silly to explain the preference for the feminine by citing men as the buyers of art. One could fill a library explaining why. Update: Josh Baer points out that Lily Safra and Sheikha Mayassa al-Thani might feel differently about the default assumption that rich men are the buyers of the world’s most expensive works of art. ) He regularly characterizes anything he doesn’t like as the product of plutocrats and the ignorant rich. Were he referring to the tastes of a particular person or offering any sort of evidence, Salmon would be entitled to his opinion.

Bigotry toward the very rich is hard to get upset about. However, the bias does suggest sloppy thinking and a poor grasp of the art market. Indeed, Salmon’s post easily elides art historical value and market value. (Felix is trying to play “gotcha” with Binstock but cannot trap him.) These two scales are separate and un-related. Valuable art is valuable because it has become a currency, not a commodity. No one suggests that gold is a “better” metal because it is accepted as currency. It simply fills that role.

Should art be used as currency? Should gems? Should shells? Obviously, those are separate questions.

The Commodification of Gerhard Richter (Reuters)

Working from ArtPrice’s annual list of the top 500 artist auction volumes, there are some interesting numbers in the Top 50 that both reflect on the rising demand for some artists but also the general rise in price level.

• At the very top, Andy Warhol‘s total sale volume rose 4% on a .5% rise in lots sold. Other high volume artists like Alexander Calder and Marc Chagall also saw impressive upward movements. Calder’s dollar volume rose 30% on 10% greater number of lots; Chagall had an even more impressive 56% price appreciation on the same 10% lot increase.

• Confirming the headline interest in Gerhard Richter‘s work, the overall lots volume went up less than 1% while the total price paid for his work at auction rose a stunning 161%.

• Even where auction lots fell, an artist like Jean-Michel Basquiat was slightly higher in overall sales (almost 5%) even though the number of lots fell 20%.

• Meanwhile, somewhat hidden were big jumps in the markets for Wayne Thiebaud (5x the total $ on 2x the total lots), LS Lowry (a 4x rise to $41m) and Stanley Spencer (a spectacular 16-fold increase even though only 4 times the lots were sold, admittedly this was a very thin market.)

The Wall Street Journal’s Nick Hastings and Steve McGrath discuss Richemont’s stunning news of 24% rise in sales. The luxury sector might not mean much for the broader economy but what does it mean for the art market?

Artprice released its tally of world auction sales earlier this month. That report is generating some headlines on Bloomberg with the revelation that Chinese classical artists have taken the number 1 and 2 position away from Picasso and Warhol. But what is so striking is that the two top auction names have cleared nearly $1bn in combined sales in 2011.

That number speaks to the exploding volume of auction sales in China. But that doesn’t mean China is taking away from the West. Even as Picasso was eclipsed his sales reached near record levels. So China’s gain is not Europe’s loss.

Here’s how Artprice puts it:

Asia not only accounts for the largest volume of global art auction revenue, but is also beginning to generate the best individual auction results. With more than 684 results above the million-dollar threshold hammered in China in 2011, that is already well over a hundred more than the US total (533) over the same period, and represents a 36% increase in the number of Chinese million-plus auction results versus 2010. [...] Of the year’s 100 best individual results, 30 came from Hong Kong, Beijing and Hangzhou.

In 2011, the ultra-top end of China’s art market generated 51% of the world’s total art market revenue with approximately 1600 auction lots!

Alongside Asia’s and China’s geographical domination of the global art market, we have also seen a strong growth in the values of Asian artists since 10 of the world’s 15 most sought-after artists are of Chinese origin.

For the second time in 15 years, Pablo Picasso is not the world’s top selling artist (in 2007, Andy Warhol briefly occupied the first position in Artprice’s Top 10 ranking of artist’s by auction revenue) and comes only third in 2011 behind Daqian Zhang and Qi Baishi despite the fact that the Spanish artist generated a total of more than USD 320 million, his second best annual total (2010 produced his best-ever annual total).

Zhang Daqian with more than $500m and Qi Baishi with more than $445m both managed to exceed the highest individual annual total ever generated by an artist (the previous record, $360m, belonged to Pablo PICASSO for 2010).

“There were surprisingly few guarantees in the November sales,” says Nick Maclean of the dealership Eykyn Maclean. “This shows that vendors were confident they would sell.” He says that in the impressionist and modern art field the auction results do not reveal the enormous amount of business transacted out of the public eye, through private dealers or through the auction houses’ private treaty departments. He is confident that there is enough supply in this field as well.

It is worth speculating that these two trends—the retreat to private sales and the growth of the high end of the market—are connected.

A Market Divided (The Art Newspaper)