Next month, London, as it did last February, will host the first major Impressionist and Modern art sales of the year. But this time, instead of watching to see how far the market has fallen from the previous year, we will be looking to see to what extent it has stabilised or gained momentum.
As we go into 2010, we are entering a new phase for market analysis where year-on-year comparisons of auction sales no longer confront post- with pre-crash results; the weak with the strong. It was not until this time last year, after a disastrous autumn when consignments and estimates were still at boom-time levels and selling rates plummeted, that the process of readjustment had properly begun – and that is where the comparisons will be made. It will be more like for like, with no "Sales down by 80 per cent!" headlines.
One thing that has remained consistent with last year is the number of works Sotheby's and Christie's feel the market can contain. After a tally of 950 in February 2008, lot numbers for this series fell to 500 last year and remain pretty much the same for next month.
Estimates for the sales, though, have risen from £125 million last year to anything between £150 million to £200 million. If the sales make the low estimate, they will be back to February 2006 levels. If they hit the high, they'll be closer to 2007, when lot numbers peaked at 1,200. And if they do that with just 500 lots, average prices would, astonishingly, be above peak levels.
The key factor this year is that Sotheby's has three works each estimated to sell for £10 million or more. Ten million is the magic, confidence-boosting number that has proved somewhat elusive since the downturn. In 2009, it took Sotheby's all year to make that many £10 million sales, and the presence of these three works in one sale indicates that perhaps 2010 has opened with a shift in the quality of supply and the return of confidence among sellers of works at that level.
This may have its roots in the success of high-value old masters, diamonds and Chinese art in the last months of 2009, but more specifically of Sotheby's Impressionist sales in New York last November, which saw a rare, 2ft-tall, painted sculpture by Giacometti double its estimate to sell for $19.3 million (£11.7 million).
The result can only have encouraged the German Commerzbank, owners of an equally rare 7ft bronze, Walking Man, by Giacometti, to place it for sale with Sotheby's, which has estimated it to fetch a similar amount (£12 million to £18 million). It is conceivable, therefore, that the Giacometti record of $27.5 million (£13.7 million) set in 2008 for an 8ft 6in Grande Femme Debout, could now be broken.
Timing was probably less of an issue for Sotheby's second blockbuster, Gustav Klimt's jewel-like view of the village of Cassone on Lake Garda in Italy, which has been estimated at £12 million to £18 million.
The painting has been the subject of a lengthy negotiation between its present owner from Austria, who acquired it in 1962, and Georges Jorisch, the heir of a previous owner from whom it was reputedly taken by the Nazis, and its sale was simply dependent on when the terms of the deal, which have been kept secret, were hammered out.
The estimate may look high, but is reasonable compared with the £16.5 million a similar landscape fetched in 2006 as one of the record-breaking group of restituted Klimts that were sold by Christie's in New York.
The third major work is a still life by Cézanne that set a record $11.55 million (£7 million) when sold to a Japanese buyer at auction in 1989, and is now estimated at £10 million to £15 million. Its only blemish is that when it was re-offered in New York in 2001 with a £14 million estimate, it failed to sell.
Sotheby's is hoping to take at least £80 million for its series of sales next month, which is nearly double the amount it took last February.
Christie's, on the other hand, is strong in the £1 million to £5 million range and is looking to maintain parity with last year's performance with a £70 million-plus series of sales. Combined, they should show a year-on-year gain, though much will hinge on Sotheby's big three.