More than 100 people took their seats, with at least two dozen others standing at the rear as the Janz freely flowed.
The first lot, Ben Quilty's Torana, 2002 (Lot 1 ), sold strongly, as might be expected of a Torana, and was claimed by a woman in the room for $27,000, ($32,940 inc BP) more than double its low estimate of $12,000.
Two artist records fell during the first five lots, when Olive Cotton’s most-recognisable work, Teacup Ballet (Lot 4 ), sold for $21,000 hammer ($25,620 IBP) to a phone bidder, eclipsing by $7,000 the previous top price paid for an edition of the black and white photo at Sotheby’s in 2002.
Kenneth MacQueen’s Bringing in the Cows (Lot 5 ) sold for a record price of $21,960 (IBP) for the modestly-traded watercolourist and in doing so corrected a chequered auction history for the picture which was previously titled Milking Time. At Leonard Joel's in 1988 Milking Time sold for $16,000, off an estimate of $2,000-4,000, only to sell through Sotheby’s a decade later for $10,350 (IBP).
Cressida Campbell’s early colour woodblock Kitchen Objects (Lot 3 ), landed with a phone bidder for $28,000 hammer, $34,160 (IBP) not far off its high estimate of $30,000.
After the early highlights, bidding settled into a more predictable pattern with bargain hunters, mostly on the phone, sitting on their hands or acquiring works at about their reserve.
Among the highlights was the cover lot, John Brack’s The Tumblers, (Lot 24 ) which emerged from a private collection where it had lived for about 28 years, to hammer to a phone bidder for $840,000, ($1,024,800 IBP). That figure was the highest price of the night and $90,000 above its $750,000 high estimate.
James Gleeson’s Filigree (Lot 13 ) was another work hit out of the park, with determined phone bidder triumphing over a bidder in the room to pay $110,000, ($134,200 IBP), $70,000 above the high estimate.
A 51cm cube of glass coated with Inconel by American sculptor Larry Bell received a bid for $120,000 straight up, despite having been offered with a $65,000 to $85,000 estimate.Titled Cube 20 (Lot 41 ) it sold for $140,000 with the buyer to pay $162,800 (IBP).
Unlike Sotheby’s Australia’s stated adherence to publishing its results from the night, Deutscher and Hackett reports totals which include sales concluded in the days following.
Bearing this in mind, the official reported auction total was $4,790,574 with 74% sold by volume and 82% sold by value, from a pre-auction estimate of $4.8 to $6.6 million.
This strategy gives Deutscher and Hackett reported totals superior to those they might otherwise have, depending on the volume of post-auction sales. For this auction it was five sales with a total value of $150,000, but it also gives market-watchers insight into just how willing some sellers are to accept below advertised estimates.
By way of example, Lloyd Rees’ small pencil on paper, Balls Head, Sydney Harbour (Lot 7 ) was passed-in after a phone bidder was reluctant to name a price. It sold after auction for $20,000 ($24,400 IBP) compared to the pre-sale estimate of $25,000 - $35,000.
Another Rees, from a different vendor, was even more highly discounted. Summer Morning (Lot 8 ) was listed with expectations of $55,000 - $75,000 but after being passed-in without a bid, sold for $36,000, $43,920 (IBP).
Charles Blackman’s broody The Sisters (Lot 15 ), was overlooked on the night but sold subsequently for $50,000 ($61,000 IBP), despite a pre-sale estimate of $70,000-$90,000.
Nora Heysen’s still life, Spring Bunch, (Lot 97 ) was listed with expectations of $16,000-$20,000 but sold afterwards for $10,000, ($12,200 IBP).
Clifton Pugh’s The Grey Wombat (Lot 99 ) went for $6,000, ($7,320 IBP) off pre-sale expectations it would fetch $8,000-$12,000.
The major unsold lots were an early Jeffrey Smart, Outskirts Athens, 1964 (Lot 23 ); Arthur Boyd’s Shoalhaven (Lot 25 ) and three lots by women artists, Ethel Carrick Fox’s Sur La Plage, 1910 (Lot 29 ) and On the Sands c1913 (Lot 28 ) and Grace Cossington-Smith’s Samuel Marsden After Service At St. John's Parramatta (Lot 11 ).
The Cossington-Smith might have suffered from increased expectations following the sale last year of a later work, albeit of a similar size, Still Life in the Window from the James Fairfax Collection which went for $268,000 including the premium.
Following the recent publication of a paper led by the University of NSW, looking at how art by women is under-valued, it was disappointing to observe these results from a catalogue made up of more than one third of works by women.
Except for the sale of Olive Cotton's Teacup Ballet (Lot 4 ), all the exceptional sales results were for works by men.
Joseph Backler’s View of Goulburn 1846 (Lot 58 ) hammered for $61,000, double the artist’s previous high of $27,600 (IBP) for Portraits Depicting Mr. and Mrs. Hyland of Parramatta at Sotheby's in 1998.
Stanislaus Rapotec’s rare expression of pure geometric abstraction, Circle Movement, (Lot 40 ) sold for $42,700. The artist’s previous high watermark was set in 2001 when Drawing at St Peter's Square sold for $34,075 (IBP) at Deutscher-Menzies.
But it was Peter Godwin’s Shell, Harpsichord and Easel, 2009 (Lot 83 ) which re-wrote the record book most comprehensively when it sold for $25,620, within its estimates, but five times the artist’s previous auction high of $5,704 for Studio II, achieved just a year ago at Mossgreen’s The Lowenstein Collection sale.
