Christie's tribal art auction had a lackluster performance last week. While 196 lots sold (around 64% of all lots offered), the sale garnered just €1,017,787. This is a trifle, considering that Sotheby's pulled in nearly the same amount of money from a single lot, Lot 87, a rare Kwele 'altar' figure from Gabon. While the lot was estimated between €450,000 and €600,000, it went on to fetch €971,950 at last week's sale. That price is just €45,837 short of Christie's total auction sale - maybe Sotheby's plan to be a high market, low volume auction seller really is working.
The highest priced and sold item at Christie's sale was Lot 144, a Fang Reliquary figure that went for €51,400. It had been estimated to fetch between €40,000 and €60,000. Neither of the two pieces (Lot 236 and Lot 311) that we profiled in last week's auction preview sold.
Sotheby's had a remarkably different auction. In addition to their million euro lot 87, the auction house sold 42 lots (or 66% of total lots offered) for a total price of €3,601,500 - over 3.5 times more than Christie's. 7 lots sold for over €100,000 while all but 8 lots sold for over €10,000.
Dori Rootenberg
JacarandaTribal.com
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