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At Phillips's salesroom in Berkeley Square, the results for its sales were chilly, with the housing netting $19.8 million, a 17.5 percent drop from last year. Just 24 of the 31 lots on offer wound up selling, and only a few exceeded their high estimates. The sale was led by David Hockney's 2005 Path Through Wheat Field, July, which sold for £3.32 million (about $4.34 million), just over its high estimate, and a Yayoi Kusama pumpkin sculpture went for £1.98 million (about $2.6 million).
Other bright spots came from splashy contemporary names like Anna Weyant and Andreas Gursky, as well as the market newcomer Joseph Yaeger, who made his auction debut with Sphinx Without a Secret (2023), which sold for 10 times its estimate, at $265,000. Another runaway success of the evening came from an unusual place, as a Marcel Broodthaers assemblage tripled its estimate and sold for just a hair under half a million dollars.
Parting Shot: Olivia Thornton, Phillips's head of modern and contemporary art in Europe, said after the sale in a statement, "We continue to demonstrate our focused, adaptable approach in a market where collectors are more discerning than ever," and highlighted the house's ongoing relationship with "key consignors" who supported the auction, Marcel Brient and the Herbig Collection.