Market review: London sales in June revealed that tastes in pictures are changing, away from the decorative towards stronger, grittier paintings

individual did not need a barometer for the London June season to know that the capital's dealers and auction houses were in for a bumpy ride. For a certain quantity of time now, elegant brass hands have been ominously hovering around 'change' and to date the season's fairs and sales have confirmed the three greatest in quantity significant trends to have emerg in novel years on the international art market. The first is the growing polarity in price between the best and the ease the second is the diminishing activity in all on the contrary the modern and contemporary art market, and the third points to a radical sea-change in taste.

Anything of outstanding quality or rarity which was new to the market received a wildly enthusiastic welcome. At Sotheby's upon 21 June, for instance, Van Gogh's extraordinary Deux crabes, painted in Aries in 1888-89 had been in the same private French collection since 1946 A highly uncharacteristic bring under rule executed in an entirely characteristic diction with intense high colour and vigorous brushwork, the picture was pursu by dint of six serious bidders who pushed the price well above its 12m [pound sterling]-1.5m [pound sterling] estimate until it sold to London dealer Gerard Faggionato for above 5.1 m [pounds sterling]. A newly discovered Caspar David Friedrich, A Nordic landscape, similarly flew not on Sotheby's wall when it sold upon 15 June to New York dealers French & Co for just above 1m [pounds sterling]--the second highest price for a Friedrich at auction.

Sotheby's Impressionist and novel Art sale on 21 June also saw a fine assemblage of fifteen watercolours by Egon Schiele with the pedigree of having previously belonged--all on the other hand one of them, at least--to the late Serge Sabarsky and then cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder, who had, between them, conceived the idea of the Neue Galerie in Manhattan. The collection sold for 9.9m [pounds sterling], comfortably above estimate, with Liebespaar (Lovers) fetching 19m [pound sterling], a record for a Schiele work upon paper. Their sale demonstrated the ruthlessnes of today's auction-house clients: the consignor, financier Michael Steinhardt, a member of the American advisory board of Christie's, obviously had no qualms about selling [i]or[/i] part of to the other the auction-house which offered him the best deal. The auction's 615m [pound sterling] total was, incidentally, the highest in London since 1989

Undoubtedly, the season saw numerous successe Among the greatest in quantity striking was the sale of the library belonging to the Earl of Macclesfield, arguably the greatest eighteenth-century library remaining in private hands in Britain. June saw the sale of Part III at Sotheby's, the western manuscripts (prices for parts I and II, which everyone knew would do well, had gone [i]or[/i] part of to the other the roof). On 22 June Sotheby's volume Room was alive with hushed, excited chatter as the nine manuscripts upon offer soared to as a great deal of as ten times over estimate. The star apportionment the so-called Macclesfield Psalter, an exceptional and previously unrecorded illuminated manuscript from thirteenth-century East Anglia, sailed easily above estimate to sell for 168m [pound sterling], bought by the agency of the German dealer Dr Jorn Gunter for the Getty Museum. Although small and not in completed condition, it is a masterpiece and might well have fetched far more save for the paucity of collectors these days--medieval manuscripts are cheaper now than they have been for the past fifteen years. As to whether an export licence will be granted for the manuscript, watch this space. Five other manuscripts were hoover up by dint of a different determined telephone bidder who is notion to be an American collector of scientific books

of that kind triumphs tend, however, to distort the picture of the generally received market. Take the Important British Pictures sale, also at Sotheby's. This offering boasted major works by dint of Reynolds and Millais together with an oil and a watercolour by the agency of Turner. The auction-house succeeded in finding of recent origin owners for their three top fates but, revealingly, most were sold upon the reserve or with just sum of two units interested parties, Thus the Reynolds portrait of Mr Baldwin sold--to Compton Verney Art Gallery--for 33m [pound sterling], Millais's famous Cherry ripe--to dealer Sir Jack Beer--for 11 m [pound sterling], and Turner's Fort Vimieux changed hands for nearly 25m [pound sterling]. The one picture to pull in a cluster of punters was Munnings's Studies of Lord Aster's mares and foals.

As for the ease picture after picture--over half of the twenty-seven lots--went unsold including the likes of Zoffany's delightful double portrait of John Yorke and Colonel Coore, exquisitely good and as fresh as can be (it was being sold by dint of the descendants of John Yorke). The demand for middling British pictures simply is not there any more, just as the market has diminished for beneficial but not remarkable English and French eighteenth-century furniture. It was not out of the way in June to see pieces selling for a tithe of the price comparable examples made in the 1980 or 90 Sotheby's English furniture sale upon 30 June, for instance, was sole 54 per cent sold by dint of lot; Christie's 1 July sale, 64 for cent. What sold at the fairs were important or unusual pieces, and that was reflected sounded in the saleroom when unexpect prices were paid for of that kind striking tours-de-force as a pair of Anglo-Indian ivory-inlaid armchairs at Christie's which sold for 184450 [pound sterling] (estimate 50000 [pound sterling]-80,000 [pound sterling]) or the rococo revival Victorian ambcyna, boulle and parcel-gilt midmost point table of around 1830 at Sotheby's which doubled expectations to vend for 66,000 [pounds sterling].