8 minutes and $104,000,000 later...a new art auction record.
An Alberto Giacometti bronze brought £65,001,250 (about $104,000,000) at Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale yesterday in London.
As Georgina Adam, editor-at-large of The Art Newspaper explains to the BBC, "There's a market which is sort of exceptional for exceptional things. If something is a one in a lifetime opportunity, people will really step up to the plate and they will spend enormous amounts of money because it was a now or never opportunity."
Overall it was a stellar event for Sotheby's. An oil painting by Gustav Klimt fetched over £26 million and the sale total for the evening auction was £146,828,350 (almost a quarter billion dollars) also a record.
On the London real estate front, The Knight Frank Prime Central London Index shows a 1.1% increase in prime Central London real estate prices in January, with properties at the top of the market (the £10m+ segment) showing the greatest price appreciation. Inventory is low and buyers are lining up.
Despite the continued global economic crisis and uncertainties in the banking and financial sectors, the very affluent are clearly still making choice investments and spending. There are other hints at a possible loosening of the wealthy's purse strings and reports to expect more private jets at the super bowl this year...
What are you seeing in your luxury markets?
