SOTHEBY’S SELLS $186.9 MILLION IN BIGGEST LONDON ART AUCTION

Sotheby’s, the world’s second-largest auction house, raised £94.9 million ($186.9 million) in London’s biggest-ever art sale last night, Bloomberg‘s Linda Sandler reports. Twenty-three percent of the lots didn’t sell. Sotheby’s kicked off a week of London auctions with an Impressionist and modern sale, valued at £79.3 million to £111.8 million ($156.1 million to $220.2 million), and about 650 people crowded the rooms on New Bond Street. The sale showed there may be weak spots in the market for earlier art as wealthy collectors opt for later works. “The extraordinary interest in contemporary art has in some ways changed the impact of the more conventional taste of twenty-five years ago,” said art consultant Stephen Somerville.