Ad Hockney

The David Hockney that sold at Sotheby’s in London.
Sotheby’s posted the top price for the week with Hockney’s L’Arbois, Sainte-Maxime. Photo: Michael Bowles/Getty Images
Marion Maneker
October 15, 2024

With a nearly 30 percent rise in auction volume over the results from last October, the London art market may not yet be on an upswing, but the mix of property and the estimate levels are at least returning to some sort of equilibrium. The auctions held by Bonhams, Christie’s, Phillips, and Sotheby’s netted £179 million, or $234 million, in sales. And while the overall hammer ratio was only .95, the proportion of lots sold above the estimate range and below was equal. (Last year, too, Christie’s held part of the multicontinent Josefowitz sale in London, which inflated the numbers a bit, so I kept those out of the comparison.)