figure in greywacke wood of a kneeling man dating from around 600–342 B.C. sold for $1,650,550 (est. $600–900,000) at Sotheby’s.
 

In a season rife with doubts about the future of the art market, two antiquities auctions in New York this week proved that while buyers may be more hesitant to open their wallets these days, some thing haven’t changed.

“The rules are the same,” said avid buyer and Phoenix Ancient Art co-owner Hicham Aboutaam. “The market demands high quality and good provenance.”

Sotheby’s, it appears, is on the right track. At its one-session sale on Wednesday, 101 of 122 well-selected lots found buyers, for a percentage of 82.8 by lot and 89.4 by value. All in all, the sale earned $8.9 million on an estimate of $4–6.9 million, a figure that Richard Keresey, the worldwide head of antiquities at Sotheby’s, noted was nearly identical to the one made in June 2008.

The two top lots in the sale were Egyptian: a figure in greywacke wood of a kneeling man dating from around 600–342 B.C. and a nummulitic limestone figure of a princess, from Tell el-Amarna, circa 1347–1345 B.C. Both sold to a buyer in the room for $1,650,550 (est. $600–900,000) and $1,082,500 (est. $400–600,000), respectively. According to a reliable source, the buyer was from Qatar, and it is not too big a stretch to speculate that the end user will be the major collector Sheikh Saud Al-Thani, who is known to be especially fond of Egyptian antiquities. The greywacke figure had been sold in Sotheby’s first-ever antiquities auction in 1835, for £60.

The princess figure was one of several lots from the collection of the late Denys Sutton, a onetime editor of the collecting magazine Apollo who was known as an astute collector himself. Other Sutton pieces in the sale also did well: A black diorite torso of a man from the Ptolemaic period, circa 305–330 B.C., sold over the telephone to an American collector for $662,500 (est. $150–200,000), and a Roman-period Egyptian faience vase, circa first half of the first century A.D., attracted many bidders before selling to Phoenix’s Aboutaam, a major buyer — and underbidder — at the sale, for $59,375 (est. $6,000–9,000).

Aboutaam also bought the third most expensive — and arguably the best — piece in the sale, a large Cycladic figure of a goddess, for $1,022,500 (est. $300–500,000). Aboutaam said afterward that many people at the sale congratulated him on the purchase.

In contrast, Christie’s much larger two-session sale of antiquities and ancient Jjewelry the previous day was lackluster, fetching $5.3 million against pre-sale expectations of around $7.5 million. Of the 324 lots offered, 199 found buyers, for 53 percent sold by value and 63 percent by lot.

Most of the higher-priced lots on offer went unsold, victims not so much of a down market but of condition problems, high estimates, and overambitious reserves. The expected star lot, a bronze portrait of the Emperor Vespasian (est. $700–900,000), was the biggest casualty. “It’s a historical piece,” said Jerome Eisenberg, owner of New York and London’s Royal-Athena Galleries. “A collector wouldn’t buy it, and museums are being very careful with their money these days.” But other observers said that people just “didn’t believe in it,” pointing out that Vespasian reigned from 69 A.D. to 79 A.D., but the bust was made around the 2nd century A.D. It would be very unusual for a sculpture of an emperor to be made so long after his death.

Several pieces did manage to do better than expected, however, including an unattractive Greek bronze of Aphrodite that drew numerous bidders and sold for $242,500 (est. $100–150,000), the third highest price in the sale. A mediocre Roman marble bust of a young woman sold for $110,500 (est. $25–35,000), prompting one museum curator to quip, “lucky owner,” and a dealer to speculate, charitably, that the pieces had been bought by “new collectors who were at an early stage in the learning process.”

The top lot of the sale was a monumental Roman marble statue of the Emperor Hadrian, from circa 117–138 A.D., which sold over the telephone to an American collector for $902,500 (est. $350–550,000). The sculpture was heavily restored, but it had a good provenance — it once belonged to John Bligh, 4th Earl of Darnley (1767–1831) — and is of a famous subject. The finest piece in the sale in terms of quality was an Egyptian bronze Osiris, circa 1012–712 B.C., which came from a private collection and had been bought at Sotheby’s in Monte Carlo in 1987 at a sale of the famous Béhague Collection. Underbid by Aboutaam, it sold over the telephone to an anonymous buyer for $422,500 (est. $150–250,000).

Summing up the successes and failures of the sales, London dealer Rupert Wace said, “The market is good for the right things.”