Long faces at NY art houses

The spring sales of impressionist and modern art in New York had a mixed opening with an evening auction at Christie's in which two of the most expensive pieces, a portrait by Picasso and a still life by Gauguin, failed to sell.

Fifty-eight of the 67 works on offer were sold, 32 above pre-sale estimates, raising $76.2m (pounds 49.5m), below estimates of $77.2m to $104.3m and well beneath last autumn's evening sale total of $107m.

Despite the shortfall, the art world's high hopes for this week's sale of impressionists were partially met with strong sales of less expensive works and, as a whole, prices signaled the market is holding steady. Between Christie's, which is judged to have the more important works this year, and Sotheby's, which began its sale last night, there are over 700 works of art on offer.

The highlight of the Christie's evening was Interieur d'un Restaurant, an 1887-1888 painting by Vincent van Gogh that had not changed hands since 1935, which fetched $10.3m, marginally above estimates. Degas's Woman in the Tub, described by Christie's as the most important painting by the artist to have come up for auction since Les Blachiseuses sold for $13.5m in 1987, went for $5.4m, well below an expected hammer price of $7m. Monet's Le Palais Contranini took $3.85m against an estimate of $4m to $6m.

Though bidding on lots priced up to $1m were brisk, faces in the packed auction grew longer as a number of the most important works on offer failed to sell at all. Bidding on Paul Gauguin's Nature morte a l'Esperance, a comparatively dull painting of sunflowers that once hung in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art reached only $5 million before it was withdrawn for failing to reach its $10m reserve.

Pablo Picasso's 1932 portrait of Marie-Therese Walter, La Lecture, was expected to fetch between $6m and $8m, but failed to meet the required minimum; bidding stopped at $4.8m. Last auctioned in 1989 for $5.8m, it was judged by many to be over-valued. Some lots reached above the market's expectation, including Charing Cross Bridge a la hauteur du Parliament by Claude Monet which fetched $3.9m, beating its high estimate of $3.5m, and a Matisse, Les citrons au plat d'etain, which, at $3.7m, was more than a million above its high estimate.

Many of the pictures at auction were from the estates of two notable private collectors, the late Joseph Hazen, a Hollywood lawyer who first brought Elvis Presley to the screen and Joanne Toor Cummings, a New York collector who was married to the founder of one of America's largest food concerns.

The sales have intensified the rivalry between Sotheby's and Christie's. Sotheby's has long been the larger and but last year Christie's moved closer with $1.47bn to Sotheby's $1.67bn.

The impressionist sales continue this week and next week both houses return with contemporary sales.