The figures represented a far from stirling result but in the face of the rapidly declining slide of the dollar against Sterling itself - even into the last days of the viewing - worse might have been possible had not Christie's been so highly selective. No trade pictures were sourced from Australia and similar works hovering over the London market were not accepted for the auction.
The result from the 55 lots sold represented a respectable 77 per cent by value and 72 per cent by volume. It was largely achieved thanks to a well foreseen sleeper, if such an oxymoron can exist, in the form of a $683,000 contribution from a modestly sized portrait of an early patron of Australian Impression Louis Abrahams estimated to fetch $64,000 to $110,000 hammer.
A crowd of around 50 gave useful support to the Internet and phone bidding and helped make up for the greatest disappointment of the day, the failure of the catalogue cover painting John Peter Russell's Coucher de Soleil sur Morestil (Lot 9 ) to find a buyer. The estimate of $750,000 to $950,000 was considered a little rich on today's market compared with the excesses of the Sir Leon and Lady Peggy Trout sale in Brisbane of 1969.
Some prominent Australian art market players scoffed at the lowly expectations for the “sleeper,” Portrait of Louis Abrahams (Lot 4 ) a subject painted by the sitter's friend and fellow student at the NGV school, and giant of Australian portraiture, Tom Roberts.
Not too long ago (at Sotheby's in Sydney in May last year), $976,000 was paid for Portrait of Emma Minnie Simpson which now looks far less than the one-off it appeared at the time when it bore pre-sale estimates of $300,000 to $400,000.
Admittedly the latter was a pretty little girl and pretty little girls have been extremely popular aspects of Roberts' oeuvre since Christie's sold his Portrait of Lily for $14,500 in 1972. Minnie also had a cat on her lap and that would add at least 25 per cent to the work.
There was at that time also the premium for Minnie's pressing acquisition by the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) as a painting to celebrate Mr Ron Radford's many years of service to the gallery as director.
The Abrahams portrait would not be amiss at the price in any of many Australian art institutions as a specimen of portraiture, as a well painted portrait of a known interesting subject, as a painting of an interior (the studio) or just of a corporate identity or a major philanthropist.
There were many Louis Abrahams around then as there are today but surely the sitter was also the same Louis Abrahams as the sitter for Frederick McCubbin's Down on His Luck acquired by the Art Gallery of Western Australia as early as 1896.
The family firm in which the sitter Louis Abrahams was a shareholder, was the tobacco distribution company Sniders and Abrahams. His firm was the source of the panels on which the very foundation stones of Australian Impressionism, the 9 by 5s and many other early pieces of Australian Impressionism were painted upon, namely cigar box lids?
The most likely institutional interest should have begun with the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra which it did not, which may have at least partly been due to its need to absorb the costs of Portrait of Captain Bligh recently bought through the same Christie's which held this sale, but by private treaty.
That was Bligh with the brown eyes which is thought to be the same Bligh with the blue eyes as he was elsewhere credited with having. Tinted contact lenses had not been invented during Bligh's lifetime.
The NGA was the most possible contender as buyer – despite, rather than regardless of, - the gallery's current holding of a portrait of Abrahams titled The Artist in His Studio (Louis Abrahams) by John Mather sold in the same Christie's Mayfair complex of £25,000 (then $A42,833) in September 2013. (It was held in the new rooms adjacent to Christie's with the extra pleasant ambience created by windows with a view of other than the rostrum), acquired from Spink. That portrait was from behind. We do not see his face. In the current work he is shown turned towards the viewer.
The later suicide by sitter gave the offering an overcast note but outside the Indigenous market death has not been such a fraught issue given that The Dead Landlord by Sir William Dobell was an Australian art auction record setting picture, also sold at Christie's but in Sydney in 1973. Modern life should be able to cope with the illness that ended that of the sitter's.
Abrahams was reported to have been depressed when he died after being upset by some unsubstantiated slur on the business. He may have rued not continuing as an artist doing precisely the opposite of John Peter Russell who abandoned his family business and created an artist's community on Belle Ille off the French Coast.
Another place where it would have been at home is one of the Jewish museums in Australia with the help, assumingly, of donors.
The Robert's portrait, an oil on canvas this time, measuring 40.6 by 35.6 cm (cigar boxes with lids of this size may not have been so freely available) was painted in 1886, two years before the exhibition which made small studies of the size for which such panels were ideally suited.
The portrait's appearance also coincides with that of a number of Arthur Streeton's works once in the collection of one of the two other notable early patrons of the key members of the early Australian Impressionist school. Once in the collection of Baldwin Spencer, these appeared at the Sotheby's Australia sale in Sydney on.
The Roberts portrait was one of four works in the sale from members of the Abrahams family in Britain, the portrait being the property of the sitter's great grand-daughter. Catalogued as one of the other works from the Abrahams family, Greaves Farm, Heidelberg (Lot 5 ), a 35.4 by 40.3 cm oil on canvas by Sir Arthur Streeton sold for £80,500 against estimates of £70,000 to £100,000. Streeton, a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy when he was in London, is shortly to have one of his works hung in the National Gallery of London from which he painted the view in one of his most celebrated early pictures. That is the Centre of the Empire and shows Trafalgar Square.
But the moment is now Roberts and to an equal extent Abrahams, although the later fell down on his luck in the end.
Greaves Farm appears to have been bought by Abrahams at Gemmell, Tuckett and Co in 1890. Other works once owned by Louis Abrahams should be familiar to saleroom habitués and gallery goers.
The most important was A Bush Idyll by McCubbin, which in a report of the previous day's sales the Melbourne Argus reported under the headline Some High Prices sold for £282. 10 shillings at Hugh McIntosh, scion of a stockbroking family at an auction held by Decoration Co, in 1919.
The sum would have been a very considerable one for all concerned at the time and would have made a worthy “investment” had the Abrahams family held onto it.
The painting showing a couple embracing in the bush sold for $2.31 million at Christie's in Sydney in August 1998 and for several years remained the top price paid at auction for any Australian art work.
Louis' brother, Lawrence, was also a great supporter of the same school and likewise acquired some of its fine early masterpieces and the sale of one of three closely following each other which established the first great resale market in Australian Impressionism.
Another Roberts portrait from the Abrahams family also did modestly well when the painting of an unknown sitter when A Spanish Beauty (Lot 3 ) sold for £43,750 IBP against estimates (excluding BP) of £40,000 to £60,000.
Portraits have tended to be neglected as a genre by buyers in much of the 20th century especially during the gum tree period. A soaring interest in the Archibald prize has turned them from a merely popular focus to a financial reality and the rise of the selfie may be taking it further.
The other portrait to make an important impression on Christie's latest sale was Frederick Goldie's Reverie … A Ngapuhi Chieftainess (Lot 24 ) which sold for £320,000 against £200,000 to £300,000. Maori chiefs and chietainnesses have long been heavy currency in New Zealand where there is no “gum tree school" which may have held portraiture back in Australia
Both countries, however, have earlier 19th century portraits, which rightly have come down to us as "Old Grizzlies" which are still hard to move whoever they are by.
Nicolas Lambourn, Christie's Travel specialist said that the company hopes to persist with annual Australian painting sales in London especially as it still had access to some very fine and desirable works that had over the years found their way to the UK.
An extraordinary surrealist painting (Lot 48 ) by Aletta Lewis showing bodies strewn across the roof of a Darlinghurst, Sydney, terrace rooftop made only £7500 IBP against £8000 to £10,000. But even when these older catalogue estimates were translated into $A16,000 to $A21,000 it understandably failed to appeal as the work of a little known visitor to these shores given the cautious mood of the times.
