Tight money puts pinch on Impressionist auction
Joelle Diderich, Associated Press
Tuesday, December 2, 2008

A benchmark Paris sale of Impressionist and Modern paintings that belonged to French fashion designer Jeanne Lanvin fell well short of pre-sale expectations Monday, in a clear signal the financial crisis is hitting the previously resilient art market.
Christie's auction house said in a statement it raised $9.67 million at its evening sale of works by artists including Pablo Picasso and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It had originally valued the collection at $25.2 million.
The highest-selling work in the sale was Renoir's "Woman With a Parasol Sitting in the Garden," which fetched $1.46 million below its estimate of $1.51 million to $2.27 million, according to Christie's.
Only 23 of the 31 lots were sold, it said. Among the paintings that failed to find a buyer was Renoir's "The Tapestry in the Park (Presumed Portrait of Camille Monet)," which had been estimated at $3.15 million to $4.41 million.
Further works by artists including Edgar Degas, Eugene Boudin and Camille Pissarro also stayed on the shelf.
Lanvin, who died in 1946 at the age of 79, started off making clothes for her daughter. She went on to become one of France's most influential designers of the 1920s and '30s, creating the classic fragrance "Arpege."
The paintings originally hung in her Paris apartment, designed by the architect and interior designer Armand-Albert Rateau. A portion of the interior is now on show at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale will go toward two arts charities run by the Polignac dynasty, the aristocratic family into which Lanvin's daughter Marie-Blanche married.
The Lanvin fashion label lives on, under the artistic direction of the critically acclaimed Israeli-American designer Alber Elbaz.