Three works by Andy Warhol sold for a total of 6.4 million pounds ($10.5 million) in London last night as Sotheby’s relied on established names to bolster the contracted auction market for contemporary art.

Sotheby’s 40-lot sale totaled 25.5 million pounds with fees, just below the high estimate of 27.4 million based on hammer prices, with 92.5 percent of the works finding buyers. The result is 73 percent drop from the equivalent sale last year.

The average price then was a record 1.33 million pounds. Twelve months later, in a market still adjusting to the economic slump, the average figure dropped to 690,000 pounds. Auction houses are refusing to guarantee sellers a minimum price for their property; that made fewer high-value works available for purchase, said dealers.

“This is a performing transitional market,” Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s worldwide head of contemporary art, said after the auction. “It’s recalibrating itself at a healthy level. None of the high-value lots failed to sell.”

Warhol’s 1963 silver paint-and-silkscreen on canvas, “Mrs. McCarthy and Mrs. Brown (Tunafish Disaster),” was one of three Warhol works entered by a private European collector, who had bought them during the 1990s. All three of the works sold for hammer prices below their presale low estimates.

‘Death and Disaster’

The “Tunafish Disaster” painting -- one of 11 produced by Warhol as part of his “Death and Disaster” series -- sold to a telephone bid of 3.7 million pounds from Chapin Carson of Sotheby’s New York client services department. The low estimate, based on the hammer price, was 3.5 million pounds, making it the highest-valued work in the sale.

Warhol’s 1976 acrylic-and-silkscreen “Hammer and Sickle” made 2 million pounds and a 1980 work, “Diamond Dust Shoes,” in the same medium and sprinkled with diamond granules, 634,850 pounds. Both were bought by bidders in the room, “Diamond Dust Shoes” by New York- and London-based dealer Larry Gagosian.

Sotheby’s focused its selection on older or dead artists with established reputations, rather than younger “cutting edge” names that have been the subject of speculative buying in recent years. All but four of the 40 works had never been previously seen at auction, according to the catalog.

A 4-foot-high wooden, string and wire standing mobile by Alexander Calder, “A Cinq Morceaux de Bois,” dating from 1934 -- a year normally associated with works in auctions of Impressionist art -- was one of the few substantially estimated lots to attract intense competition. Five bidders contested the work before it was sold for 2.6 million pounds, double the low estimate, to the London-based dealer Simon Theobald, bidding on behalf of a client.

Sales ‘Hunger’

“It was a very reasonable price for an early masterpiece by Calder,” said Theobald, in an interview. “Volumes at these sales are lower, but there is a hunger out there. I was surprised by the amount of bidding in the room.”

The Canadian winter landscape, “Almost Grown,” by the Anglo-Scottish painter, Peter Doig, carried an estimate of 1.4 million pounds to 1.8 million pounds. Christie’s International will be offering a similarly valued cityscape by the artist next week. Doig shot to prominence in February 2007 when a record 5.7 million pounds was paid for his 1991 painting “White Canoe” at Sotheby’s, London.

Sotheby’s latest Doig, entered by a European collector, was a more subdued work from 2000 showing a lone figure glimpsed through the branches of conifer trees. It drew two telephone bidders, selling for 2.1 million pounds to a “specialist Doig collector,” said Sotheby’s.

Turnover, Profit

“The sales are smaller, there’s less top-quality available,” Heinrich zu Hohenlohe, director at the London-based dealers and agents Dickinson, said in an interview. “These auctions have become dry and professional. It’s difficult to get people to bid if there’s no excitement. The selling rates might be good, but the only statistics that matter are turnover and profit.”

Apart from the Calder, few works sold substantially over estimate. Among these was the 14-inch-high self-portrait “Mini- Me” by Maurizio Cattelan, dating from 1999. One from an edition of 10, it elicited a collective “aaaah” from onlookers before selling to one of three telephone bidders for 493,250 pounds, almost doubling the high estimate. In May 2005, at the beginning of the contemporary art boom, another version of the piece sold for $441,600 at Christie’s, New York.

Fifty-seven percent of the lots were bought by buyers from Europe, 24 percent from the U.S. and 19 percent from Asia, said Sotheby’s.