Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.

Amid a sluggish art market and concerns about new tariffs, the design category keeps growing. Earlier this month, as much of the art world was in Basel, the major auction houses each held design sales that outperformed expectations.

Sotheby’s design sales in New York totaled $37.5 million, and Christie’s totaled $23.6 million; Phillips, which staged just one sale in this category this time, brought in $4 million. By comparison, last year, Sotheby’s reported $19.5 million in design sales, Christie’s reported $15.5 million, and Phillips reported $5.1 million across two sales with significantly more lots. Across all three houses, that’s a 62.3 percent year-on-year increase.

Experts told ARTnews there are multiple factors behind the category’s continued momentum for established names and a broad range of artists.

Lewis Wexler, who previously served as Christie’s assistant vice president of 20th-century decorative arts, told ARTnews there has been a “paradigm shift,” with collectors purchasing design in the same way they approach fine art.

“There’s always a demand for lighting, benches, sofas, and things along those lines,” said Wexler, who currently runs an eponymous gallery in New York and Philadelphia. “I think there has been a realization that you can obtain the same quality and caliber in the design world that you can find in the paintings hanging on your walls.”

That awareness has increased due to larger budgets for interior design, notable gallery exhibitions and institutional acquisitions, greater auction data about the investment value of collectible pieces, and the re-evaluation of artists such as Sonia Delaunay and Toshiko Takaezu, both of whom were the subject of major shows in New York last year.

Claire Warner, cofounder of Chicago’s Volume Gallery, which focuses on material-driven art practices and design, told ARTnews that the ongoing “technological revolution” has pushed collectors toward items that are “handmade” and “well-crafted.”

“People’s understanding of this work is becoming much more fluid and not as siloed,” said Warner, who previously worked as a design specialist at the Wright auction house in Chicago.

Betsy Beierle, a senior sales associate at the design gallery Carpenters Workshop, told ARTnews that collectible design has a “cross-market fluidity” that draws buyers from multiple sectors.

“It appeals to art collectors, institutions, people working in design, architecture, fashion, and industrial design,” Beierle said.

Global interest in the category, especially from younger buyers, has also helped many design items exceed high estimates at auction.

At Sotheby’s design sale on June 11, 76 percent of the lots sold above their high estimates. Christie’s and Phillips also noted that a significant number of lots in their sales surpassed high estimates, including the three-pane, six-foot-tall Goddard Memorial Window by Tiffany Studios, which sold for $4.29 million on a $2 million–$3 million estimate. That is the second-highest price at auction for a window from the artist’s studio. Those results are especially notable given the few house and third-party guarantees offered at the sales.

The houses also saw an expanded audience this month, with Sotheby’s and Phillips reporting that more than 20 percent of buyers at their major design sales were new to the houses. Sotheby’s reported a 64 percent increase in bidders compared to last year, and a 76 percent increase in buyers. Phillips noted that millennial and Gen Z collectors made up 20 percent of bidders at its design sales this year.

“At least half the people I sold [Les Lalanne works] to last year are younger than me, which is extremely encouraging,” 56-year-old art dealer Ben Brown told ARTnews, noting his London gallery’s representation of Les Lalanne since 2007 and the ‘Planète Lalanne’ exhibition in Venice, Italy last year featuring more than 150 works. Brown added that he is frustrated that Lalanne works have been categorized as design.

The success of design objects at auction has been apparent even outside of dedicated sales, underscoring their crossover appeal. In May, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Double-Pedestal Lamp from the Susan Lawrence Dana House sold for $7.5 million at Sotheby’s modern evening sale, far exceeding its $3 million–$5 million estimate. But the spike in design interest has been most apparent in the market for works by François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne, as ARTnews reported in April. Four of the top 10 auction sales for works by François-Xavier took place last year, and at Sotheby’s design sale on June 11, Grand Rhinocéros II sold for $16.4 million—his second-highest price at auction.

Meanwhile, the result at Christie’s for the Tiffany Studios window was boosted by recent acquisitions of other large Tiffany windows by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Dealers told ARTnews that institutions have increasingly acquired design works by both established and emerging artists. For example, Carpenters’s Beierle placed Spanish artist Nacho Carbonell’s One-Seater Concrete Tree (2022) with the Cincinnati Art Museum for its outdoor sculpture garden in 2023, and Marcin Rusak’s Van Florum 23 (Hybridae Florales) at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta last year.

According to Volume’s Warner, when the gallery has worked with institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago and LACMA in recent years, curators from multiple departments—including contemporary art, design, American art, fiber art and architecture—have collaborated to acquire design works, with the idea that they may be used across different exhibitions.

The strength of the design category was also reflected in works priced under $500,000, many of which exceeded their estimates and helped set new artist records at auction this year.

American artist and furniture designer Judy McKie is one who has seen that kind of market bump. At Phillips’ design sale in New York on June 10, the top lot was her Fish Bench, which sold for $406,400 with fees, on an estimate of $150,000 to $250,000—setting a new auction record. By comparison, another edition of the same patinated bronze sculpture sold for $327,600 on a high estimate of $100,000 at Rago Auctions in 2023. Other editions of the bench are in the collection of the Longhouse Reserve, at Eastport Park in Boston, and in a public park in Walnut Creek, California.

Despite institutional acquisitions at places like the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, McKie’s prices at auction and in private sales remain relatively accessible.

“Even with the tariffs, the prices are still more easily digested than Les Lalanne,” said Wexler, who has represented McKie for years. “In fact, I literally just sold a monkey chair this week for $110,000.”

Other auction records in design have been set this year for Louis Cane, Maria Pergay, and Jean Puiforcat.

Expectations of even more growth in the future

Multiple dealers told ARTnews they expect prices in the design category to continue rising as buyers get priced out of works by top names; as design furniture, ceramics, and textiles continue their shift from craft to fine art; and as expectations for masterpieces recalibrate.

Aside from the Lalanne effect, Wexler said the prices for McKie’s bronzes are also likely to rise due to limited inventory. “I think that’s also increasing the desire for collectors to purchase the work,” he said.

Brown similarly believes auction estimates for Les Lalanne works remain too low, particularly when comparing limited-edition masterpieces like Grand Rhinocéros II to other works like the Mouton wool and concrete sheep sculptures.

“You can’t have a situation where a masterpiece is worth 10 times a perfectly nice medium-plus object by an artist,” Brown said, noting the sheep were in editions of 250 compared to the Grand Rhinocéros II, which exists in an edition of 8. “When you’ve got a discrepancy of 10 between a good and a great work, there’s something wrong.”

Brown said he expects more people to understand the appeal of Les Lalanne through his gallery’s upcoming exhibition on the French couple, René Magritte, and Surrealism, opening this fall in New York.

“When you’ve got Lalanne standing next to Magritte and standing up for themselves and looking strong, I don’t think anybody’s doubting that Magritte is a great artist,” Brown said.

Romania has secured a “long-term hold” on a painting by El Greco that was pulled from a Christie’s New York Old Masters sale in February, following a claim by the Romanian government that the work was unlawfully taken from its national collection.

With the legal move, Romania has ensured that the painting, titled Saint Sebastian (1610–1614), will remain at Christie’s New York “until Romania’s recovery efforts are heard and resolved by the proper legal authorities”, per a letter first shared with the Art Newspaper by Nixon Peabody, the law firm representing Romania in New York. The Romanian government has initiated litigation to recover the painting through Paris.

Saint Sebastian was pulled from auction in February after intervention from the Romanian government, which claimed the work as being “unequivocally the property of the Romanian state.” It was estimated to be worth between $7 million and $9 million and positioned in February as the top lot at the Christie’s Old Masters sale.

Court filings have since revealed the owner of the El Greco as Dmitry Rybolovlev, the Monaco-based Russian billionaire who consigned Salvator Mundi, the painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci and sold for a record-breaking $450 million in 2017.

Rybolovlev reportedly acquired the El Greco work from embattled Swiss dealer Yves Bouvier, whom the businessman has been ensnared in a series of legal dramas with for a decade. According to court filings, Rybolovlev purchased Saint Sebastian from Bouvier in 2010 through Accent Delight, his British Virgin Islands-incorporated offshore company used for art dealings. The Romanian suit claims that Christie’s provenance records were “misleading,” as they state Rybolovlev acquired the work directly from the dealer Giraud Pissarro Ségalot, omitting Bouvier’s involvement.

A Christie’s spokesperson queried on the case in February said the auction house “takes these matters seriously” and out of an “abundance of caution” withdrew the lot from sale while the involved parties resolve their legal dispute.

The Romanian government is arguing that the painting should be restituted as it was illegally removed from its national collection in 1947 by King Michael I, the last king of Romania, after he was forced to flee the country amid the Communist ascension to power. According to a now-deleted online catalogue entry published by Christie’s, the painting remained in the country until roughly 1976, when it entered the holdings of Wildenstein & Co. gallery in New York. Over the following decade, Romanian government officials lobbied to restitute the painting, as well as several others also pulled from its collection by the exiled monarch.

Christie’s provenance stated that “ownership transferred to King Michael I of Romania (1921-2017), 11-12 November 1947, with the accord of the Romanian government, by whom sold to the below in 1976, with Wildenstein & Co., New York, in 1976”. Saint Sebastian was reportedly acquired in 1898 by King Carol I of Romania, who bequeathed it the following year to Royal Crown of Romanian.

The Romanian Finance Ministry has rebuked this narrative as “false” and “unequivocally denies the contention that the painting Saint Sebastian by El Greco was transferred from the Romanian state/government’s collection with its consent or accord”. The ministry added in a statement that “there is no document on record of a valid accord of the Romanian government that would have transferred ownership of the painting in 1947”.

Even in a sluggish auction market, the design category—in particular when boasting notable works by Tiffany Studios, Les Lalanne, and Alberto Giacometti—continues to be a bright spot at auction, with Christie’s two recent sales totaling $23.6 Million.

“You’re also appealing to such a broad range of collectors. You’re no longer just in this like, niche group of people,” Carpenters Workshop senior sales associate Betsy Beierle told ARTnews. “Even in a hesitant market, when something’s rare and when something’s scarce, that is definitely going to outweigh any kind of sluggish performing that’s going on.”

On June 12, the single-owner sale ‘American Avant-Garde: The James D. Zellerbach Residence by Frances Elkins’ totaled $8.1 million, while the auction house’s Design sale yielded $15.4 million.

The top lot for the day was the three-pane, six-foot-tall Goddard Memorial Window by Tiffany Studios with an estimate of $2 million to $3 million. After bids between a Christie’s specialist on the phones and an online bidder, the latter won with a hammer bid of $3.5 million, or $4.285 million with fees.

This was the second-highest price realized for a notable work from the artist’s studio, after the Danner Memorial Window sold for $12.5 million with fees at Sotheby’s Modern Art evening sale last November, smashing the old record of $3.4 million for a ‘Pond Lily’ lamp sold by Christie’s in 2018. The Goddard Memorial Window was sold to support the continued advancement of St. Luke’s Church’s missions and endowment.

The result for The Goddard Memorial Window also followed two recent acquisitions of monumental landscape works by Tiffany Studios at major art institutions. In 2023, the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired the three-part, 10-foot-tall, 7-foot-wide Garden Landscape. Last month, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, announced it had acquired the monumental landscape stained glass window Mountain Landscape (Root Memorial Window).

Out of 34 lots, the vast majority of total for the single-owner sale came from its top two offerings: a pair of Important and Rare ‘Oiseau’, Curved Version, circa 1937 by Alberto Giacometti, both with estimates of $2 million to $3 million. The first of the five-foot-wide plaster bird sculptures realized $2.954 million, while the other sold for $2.833 million, both amounts including fees.

The other two lots from the design sale which surpassed seven figures were works by French sculptor Claude Lalanne. The bronze and copper chandelier Unique ‘Structure végétale aux papillons, souris et oiseaux’ Chandelier, 2000 hammered at $1.5 million, or $1.865 million including fees, on a high estimate of $1.8 million.

Other examples of Structure végétale chandeliers by Claude Lalanne with similar estimates had sold for $2.4 million to $4.4 million at design sales in Paris in 2021 and 2022. While demand for works by Claude Lalanne and her husband François-Xavier Lalanne continues to grow among new collectors, Bierele said the results on June 13 reflected a shift to a “more thoughtful” art market.

“We’re seeing it at art fairs,” she said, noting her decade of experience at Pace Gallery, as well as a director at Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago and as a private consultant before joining Carpenters Workshop in 2022. “People are taking their time, and it’s refreshing. It’s a reset. That’s absolutely what’s happening.”

L’Enlèvement d’Europe, designed in 1990, depicts the Greek god of Zeus transformed into a bull with the princess Europa on his back. The first edition of 6.5 foot-tall, 6.5 foot-long bronze sculpture attracted bids from two specialists on the phones and an online bidder before it hammered at $900,000, or $1.134 million including fees, on a high estimate of $1 million.

When the same edition of L’Enlèvement d’Europe last appeared at auction at Sotheby’s New York on December 18, 2013, it sold for $485,000 with fees, on a high estimate of $350,000.

“It didn’t explode, but I think it’s still fair to say it’s a strong result,” Beierle said, noting the piece’s monumental size, and the first time the artist used the lost cast wax method on a singular sculpture. “A real Lalanne collector is going to want that piece to put a feather in their cap.”

After François-Xavier Lalanne’s Grand Rhinocéros II blasted past its high estimate of $5 million and sold for $16.4 million at Sotheby’s design sale the day before, there were bidding wars for two of the French sculptor’s smaller works at Christie’s, including one in a familiar shape.

Rhinocéros bleu, 1981 zoomed past its high estimate of $70,000 to hammer at $260,000, or $327,600 with fees. Le Métaphore (Canard-Bateau), circa 2002 did even better, surpassing its high estimate of $120,00 by more than 400% after hammering at $530,000 or $667,800 with fees.

Beierle said the results reflected the cheeky, charming, surrealist and fun themes appealing to a growing number of collectors, while being “a little bit easier to live with” compared to Grand Rhinocéros II.

“I think you can very much easily say that you have a rhino, but you can clearly pack that one up and move it to another home, rather than the desk, which obviously is going to be a quite a different lift,” she said with a laugh.

The collection of British socialite, collector, and arts patron Pauline Karpidas will hit the auction block at Sotheby’s London September 17 and 18.

Described by the house as the “greatest collection of Surrealism to emerge in recent history,” it includes masterpieces by René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Leonora Carrington, and Max Ernst. The sale is expected to fetch £60 million ($81 million), the highest estimate ever placed on a single collection at Sotheby’s in Europe.

The collection, which also comprises unique pieces of furniture, adorned Karpidas’ London home. She was inspired to start collecting 50 years ago after an encounter with the late Greek American gallerist Alexander Iolas, who advanced the careers of Magritte, Andy Warhol, and many other prominent artists.

“Ever since my journey into the arts began, I have had the great honour of meeting a world of wonderful individuals who have made this collection possible—from Alexander Iolas, who opened my eyes and was my mentor, and many of the incredible artists themselves,” Karpidas said in a statement. “I have always seen myself as a temporary custodian for their creations, and it feels like the right moment for the pieces that make up my London home to find their next generation of custodians. This is by no means an ending, as I will continue to live among art, read books, collect new works and support artists, as I have done for so many years now.”

Oliver Barker, Sotheby’s Europe chairman, told ARTnews that Karpidas “fits seamlessly into the legacy of ‘grande dame’ collectors and patrons who have come before her—and she will no doubt inspire many for years to come.”

Barker said being involved in the sale has been one of his “career highlights.”

“There is simply no other collection like that of Pauline Karpidas,” he added. “From the extraordinary calibre of the artworks to the endless stories of deep friendships and collaborations, this is a window into a special world of boldness, conviction and insatiable curiosity.”

Works by Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Niki de Saint Phalle, Yves Tanguy, and Dorothea Tanning will also be on the block.

Karpidas, who is known for building close friendships with many of the artists she collected, was born in a modest house in Manchester before she moved to Athens in the 1960s, where she met her future husband, Greek shipping magnate Constantinos Karpidas.

In October 2023, Sotheby’s Paris sold works from the couple’s home on the Greek island of Hydra. The two-day auction realized more than €35 million ($40 million), marking the highest single-owner sale in France that year.

Last year celebrated the centennial of the birth of Surrealism (the Surrealist Manifesto was published in October 1924). Major shows were put on at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, among other museums, while auction prices for Surrealist artists have soared recently. In 2024, Christie’s sold Magritte’s L’empire des lumières (The Empire of Light) (1954) for $121.2 million in New York, a record for the painter at auction.

The works and furniture for the sale at the end of September will go on public view at Sotheby’s New Bond Street showroom September 8.

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.

One might assume that if an art authenticator deems an artwork genuine, or if an art appraiser values a piece for a certain value, you can be fairly certain the work in question is both authentic and worth roughly what the report claims—but in practice, neither conclusion is guaranteed.

An art authenticator determines if a piece is genuinely by the artist to whom it is attributed, while an art appraiser assesses the monetary value of the artwork. Authentication focuses on verifying the artwork’s origin and authorship, while appraisal focuses on its current market value.

But art appraisers and authenticators are increasingly inserting “caveats” into their appraisals or hedging authentication reports as “conditional,” seemingly to skirt the legal liability that certainty might incur. In speaking with relevant experts about two recent cases, it became clear that while appraisal and authentication have always been sticky issues, this line of work may be growing more complex.

An Appraisal, With a Caveat

In January, a Paris court secured 135 allegedly stolen paintings that were seized from Paris-based art authenticators ArtAnalysis in March of last year. ArtAnalysis had been holding the works for Israeli Russian collector Mozes Frisch. The pieces are part of a 1,778-work collection of paintings supposedly by heavyweight Russian modernists. Uthman Khatib, a Palestinian businessman from Israel, and his son, Prince Castro Ben Leon, claim the works were stolen from them by Frisch in 2019. The Khatibs are suing Frisch in Germany for either the return of the stolen works or $323 million (hundreds more paintings from the 1,778-work collection were seized in Frankfurt in 2023). Meanwhile, ArtAnalysis’s owner, Laurette Thomas, along with Frisch and art collector Olivia Amar, are suing Khatib for the return of the works held in Paris, along with an additional $30.5 million in damages (plus legal fees).

As part of the legal process, the Khatibs’ law firm, Dentons, hired UK-based Doerr Dallas Valuations to appraise the 135 disputed works for insurance purposes. Doerr Dallas assigned a valuation of $208 million. That appraisal, however, came with a “caveat,” Rachel Doerr, the company’s founder and managing director, told ARTnews in a phone call, though she would not discuss the content of that caveat. 

It would be reasonable to think that caveat had something to do with the fact that many of the works were listed by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) on the Art Loss Register (ALR) in 2014 during an investigation into disgraced Israeli art dealer Itzhak Zarug. The BKA said at the time it believed several of the works were fake. (The ALR is the world’s largest database of lost and stolen art, but it also lists artworks with disputed provenance.)

Doerr declined to comment on the works’ connection to Zarug or their authenticity, and later declined to answer additional questions, citing a non-disclosure agreement. Dentons, too, would not discuss the Doerr report, nor would Prague-based litigation funder LitFin, which has backed the Khatibs’ case.

In an email, SFA Associates, the Khatibs’ PR representation, wrote to ARTnews, “The valuation was obtained by Dentons for the purposes of the legal claim and for insurance policies required by the court bailiffs who have physical possession of the paintings, not for any theoretical sale process.”

How Doerr Dallas conducted the valuation is just as unclear. When asked if Doerr Dallas had physical access to the works for the appraisal, SFA did not comment.

The lack of transparency around the 135 works, and the apparent caveat in the report, are likely intended to protect Doerr Dallas from additional litigation related to the case. US-based art authenticator Richard Polsky described such measures as necessary “precautions” for a firm with “so much money involved” in the case.

“Conditional” Authentication

Art authentication can be just as fraught and high-stakes for authenticators. Last year, ARTnews reported on American tech company Co2Bit Technologies’s apparent efforts—through an intermediary—to exhibit an unauthenticated Jean-Michel Basquiat painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York without the museum’s permission.

Thiago Piwowarczyk, CEO of Brooklyn-based art authentication lab New York Art Forensics, told ARTnews at the time that he was hired by the intermediary to authenticate and appraise the work, titled 200 Yen, in 2023. Press releases from New York–based PR firm Eminence Rise Media—since deleted—promoted the painting, claiming it had been appraised at $90 million and would soon be shown in “top museums across the United States.”

Piwowarczyk, however, stated that the authentication of 200 Yen was “conditional” on the intermediary providing provenance records. Those records never materialized, and the appraisal was never finalized. He declined to share any reports or documentation with ARTnews.

“Conditional” authentication would seem to be something of an oxymoron, at least according to Denis Moiseev, CEO of scientific art analysis firm ArtDiscovery. “Common sense tells us there’s no such thing as ‘conditional’ authenticity—it’s like lending someone an umbrella only to demand it back when it rains,” he told ARTnews.

According to Moiseev, “conditional” valuations or authenticity reports “typically signal incomplete research,” adding that ArtDiscovery combines “connoisseurship, scientific analysis, and provenance research” into its reports. Many authenticators and appraisers are experts in only one of those areas, he contended, which is why they “hedge their conclusions with disclaimers.”

Conditional or caveated reports, he went on, are usually “cheaper, and there’s fear of litigation, prompting experts to ‘loan’ their verdicts only for fair-weather scenarios.”

ARTnews spoke to Jane Levine, the former chief global compliance counsel and head of government affairs at Sotheby’s, and now partner and co-founder of the newly formed ArtRisk Group. She said authenticators and appraisers risk facing backlashes “from lawsuits to public attacks in the media” if they give a conclusions clients don’t want to hear. “Even when these claims are ultimately dismissed as baseless and the expert is vindicated, the legal and reputational toll can be significant,” she said. “Responding to subpoenas, navigating discovery, and handling press inquiries can result in substantial legal costs and lasting damage to professional credibility. As a result, some in the field are calling for stronger legal protections, such as provisions for counsel fees which help ensure qualified, independent experts remain willing to take on this essential but high-risk work. 

Appraisal ≠ Authentication

Further complicating matters is that appraisal and authentication are typically two separate processes handled by two different experts.

Appraisers generally follow guidelines set out by the US-based Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) or the UK’s Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). Both of those bodies provide guidance on qualified conclusions—but only in narrowly defined cases and with explicit disclosure.

USPAP defines a “hypothetical condition” as a condition contrary to known facts but used for analysis purposes, and an “extraordinary assumption” as something uncertain that, if later proven false, could affect the appraiser’s conclusions. A USPAP spokesperson explained: “Hypothetical conditions are contrary to known facts about physical, legal, or economic characteristics of the subject property; or about conditions external to the property, such as market conditions or trends; or about the integrity of data used in an analysis.”

“Uncertain information might include physical, legal, or economic characteristics of the subject property,” they added, “or conditions external to the property, such as market conditions or the integrity of data.”

But not all appraisers in the US follow USPAP guidelines. It depends on the nature of the assignment, their role, and whether they’ve agreed to adhere to them. But when they do, according to the spokesperson, such conditions must be clearly identified in the report.

RICS, the UK equivalent, offers similar guidance. A spokesperson said that while RICS’s Red Book, which dictates valuation standards, doesn’t contain clauses that exactly mirror USPAP’s definitions, the principles are embedded in the standards. “RICS member art valuers are expected to clearly state the basis of value and any assumptions or special assumptions made in their reports,” the spokesperson told ARTnews. “These are crucial when the valuation is contingent on certain conditions or when facts differ from what is typically assumed.”

For instance, a RICS valuer assessing an artwork whose authenticity is not firmly established would need to declare that uncertainty as a “material uncertainty” and make a special assumption—stating, for example, that the valuation assumes the work is authentic. Similarly, if a damaged artwork is valued “as if it were in perfect condition,” that assumption must be explicitly noted.

Izabela Grocholski, an art advisor and the ex-head of Christie’s Russian Department New York, told ARTnews that auction houses require their specialists who are permitted to provide official appraisals to be USPAP-compliant. “This is a relatively recent development [that was implemented about five years ago]—it’s a good trend toward trying to control the appraisal measures and procedures,” she said.

Authenticators, meanwhile, do not have a governing body or set of standards to adhere to, according to Elizabeth von Habsburg, managing director of US-based art appraiser Winston Art Group. That makes authentication “a difficult and sometimes contentious aspect of the market,” she told ARTnews.

“Sadly, appraisal conclusions are not black or white,” she said, adding that appraisals should contain information that allows users to understand the methodology, conclusions, and limitations of the appraisal.

“For example, appraisers are not authenticators, so an assumption may be made in some cases that the works are authentic, based on information provided about provenance, literature citations and exhibition history, (as well, of course, as stylistic composition and other factors that the specialist takes into account),” von Habsburg wrote in an email. “Appraisers should indicate in their limiting conditions if there is any gap in provenance or incorrect literature or exhibition citations, but for artists without up-to-date catalogues raisonné or current authentication committees, assumptions on authenticity need to be identified in the appraisal.”

But for some appraisers, like Moira McKee, a Canada-based senior appraisal specialist at global consulting firm J.S. Held, “conditional authenticity”—even if it is allowed by professional guidelines—is “antithetical to the appraiser’s responsibility to correctly identify the property we are appraising.”

The water is muddied further when authentication and appraisal become conflated. Just a few weeks ago, ARTnews reported on a $1 million lawsuit involving Pace Gallery after its founder Arne Glimcher deemed a Louise Nevelson work inauthentic—after appraising the work decades earlier as part of a group of sculptures. Commenting on the case, with which he is not involved, art lawyer Judd Grossman told ARTnews, “Our courts have made clear that an appraisal is an opinion of value, not of authenticity.”

There have been numerous cases involving liability incurred after a work was deemed inauthentic, further complicating matters for authenticators. That’s why both the Andy Warhol estate and the Jean-Michel Basquiat estate famously disbanded their authentication boards in 2012.

In 2022, it became abundantly clear why experts put in caveats or conditions when art history professor Jordana Moore Saggese disputed that her report on Basquiat works in an Orlando Museum of Art show established the works as authentic. According to Saggese, her report established that 7 of 27 evaluated works “may be” Basquiats, with the “caveat” that she only saw the works in photographs and was relying on evidence provided by other experts hired by the works’ owner. The FBI ended up seizing the works, which it determined were fake.

But if authentication reports and appraisals come with so many conditions and caveats, it begs the question of how much stock dealers or collectors should put in them. Ultimately, it seems, one has to value each appraisal or authentication individually.

“The due diligence that an authenticator who adheres to the highest ethical standards applies to their practice is carried forth by our professional responsibility to demonstrate that every reasonable effort was made to authenticate the property in question,” McKee, the Canada-based appraiser, told ARTnews. “Sufficient and substantive evidence is imperative to a sound value conclusion.”

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.

The spring auction season ended with a miss, as Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips collectively fell short of even their most modest expectations. 

The houses had estimated $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion in sales for the week’s evening sales, but together brought in just over $1 billion, including buyer’s premiums, with each auction failing to reach its pre-sale estimate. The hammer total of $837.5 million was even more disappointing. The total was down from $1.4 billion during the same week last year and $1.8 billion in 2022. Weighing on the results were a drop in the value of highest-priced works and the fading presence of emerging artists who had dominated the market in recent years.

This month, the top ten artworks sold across the three houses brought in a combined $278.6 million with fees, led by Piet Mondrian’s 1922 painting Composition With Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue at $47.6 million. In May 2024, the top ten lots generated $312.4 million; in 2023, the figure was $403.3 million. The total for this year’s top ten lots is a dramatic 63 percent drop from 2022, when the equivalent works totalled $759.2 million.

Elsewhere during spring auction week, sales skewed more towards more established artists than in recent years. After a period of heavy emphasis on the “ultra-contemporary” category, interest in emerging and young artists has largely vanished. At Phillips—traditionally the most aggressive in that space—four of the 36 works featured in its evening sale were by artists under 45: Yu Nishimura, Ilana Savdie, Danielle Mckinney and Adam Pendleton. In the equivalent 2021 sale, there were eight. At Sotheby’s contemporary evening sale, just four artists under 45 were included, down from seven in May 2021. None of the under-45 artists who appeared in either house’s evening sales four years ago returned this season.

“There are a lot of artists that disappeared,” Elizabeth Fiore, a New York–based art adviser, told ARTnews.

To adviser Mary Hoeveler, also based in New York, the shaky performance this May appears to be a reflection of financial turmoil in other parts of the economy.

“There’s no doubt that a lack of urgency predominates now in terms of buying, especially with works that can be had in the future, like younger and mid-career artists,” Hoeveler told ARTnews. “That said, people are also reluctant to spend large sums, so there’s a sense of uncertainty that’s constraining people’s appetite to spend a lot on art.”

Mckinney was one of the few living artists to draw notable attention this season. Three of her works exceeded their high estimates last week, and since 2023, her auction prices have consistently increased, with her work hitting a new record of $340,000 in March. At Sotheby’s on Thursday, her 2023 painting Stand Still was among the most competitive lots, ultimately selling for seven times its $40,000 estimate with fees.

In March, Mckinney’s New York dealer Marianne Boesky told ARTnews that the artist has a long waiting list as institutional interest has increased. And, last week, New York art adviser Andrea Hazen told ARTnews that the Sotheby’s estimate was close to Mckinney’s primary market prices, indicating that bidding was likely to be fierce for the work.

But the pullback from “ultra-contemporary” appears to have created room for a different group to hit new highs: late-career women artists. At 93, Olga de Amaral set a new auction record when her 1996 metallic wall hanging Imagen Perdida 27 sold for just under $1.2 million at Phillips. The next day, 71-year-old Marlene Dumas reached $13.6 million—more than double her previous $6 million record from 2008. Both artists may have benefited from the rarity of their work in evening sales. Records were also set for several dead 20th-century women artists, including Dorothea Tanning, Remedios Varo, Grace Hartigan, and Kiki Kogelnik.

New York adviser Erica Samuels, who focuses on contemporary art, told ARTnews that the record for Amaral was an encouraging sign amid what she described as an undeniable slowdown in the market. “There’s no doubt things have been sluggish,” she said.

The shift may have contributed to some canonical postwar male artists landing in discount territory. Works by Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and Alberto Giacometti sold at or below their low estimates, or failed to sell altogether. Many of the works that sold well were guaranteed, meaning they weren’t exposed financially. Giacometti’s 1955 work Grande tête mince (Grande tête de Diego), estimated at $70 million, was unusually offered without a guarantee or irrevocable bit—reportedly to maximize the consignor’s potential profit—and paid the price quite literally. It failed to sell.

Fiore, whose advisory firm manages around 20 clients, said that some of her collectors are pausing on bigger private transactions in the $1 million to $2 million range. She also indicated that she saw many works offered at auction last week for “a lot less” than their asking price when the works were offered up for private sale. 

Phillips held one of its smallest evening sales in recent years, totaling $52 million—down 40 percent from the $86 million achieved in the equivalent May sale last year.

“There’s some resistance at the very high end with sellers,” Robert Manley, Phillips’s newly named chairman of modern and contemporary art, told ARTnews. Manley, who is based in New York, added that he feels the market is solid, given that most lots are still selling, and disputed that there is an actual downturn. 

“There’s definitely less speculation for younger artists, but it’s quite healthy,” he said. “People are less willing to spend these stratospheric prices.”

The demographic shift isn’t limited to artists. In recent years, the major auction houses have emphasized the role of Asian bidders, each investing heavily in the region and opening new Hong Kong headquarters. Since 2020, clients from Asia have typically accounted for about 30 percent of auction activity—but their presence was noticeably diminished this season.

In a LinkedIn post after the sales, former Christie’s CEO and current board member Guillaume Cerutti cited the drop as a key factor in the results: “The participation of Asian bidders was lower than usual,” he wrote. Phillips and Christie’s did not disclose the countries where collectors are based, as they have in the past. Sotheby’s, however, reported that US buyers led its single-owner sales, while just 10 percent of clients came from Asia.

In the past, wealth from Russia, Asia, and the Gulf have helped buoy demand. But now, according to Hoeveler, it’s unclear where that kind of buying power might come from. “Given the economic duress in the rest of the world, it’s not known where the new money is going to emerge,” she said.

Julian Ehrlich, the auction specialist known for infusing Christie’s mid-season sales with curatorial depth and market heat, has joined Gladstone Gallery as a director. The 29-year-old New York native brings with him a reputation for unearthing overlooked talent, cultivating fresh collector relationships, and championing acclaimed artists whose markets are still growing.

At Christie’s, Ehrlich spent the last four years shaping the “Post-War to Present” sale into a stage for rising markets and rediscovered voices. His September 2023 “Post-War to Present” sale brought in over $28 million and featured auction firsts for Joe Overstreet and Rick Lowe, alongside strong results for Gene Davis, Helen Frankenthaler, and Noah Purifoy, whose Totem smashed estimates by more than 750 percent.

Ehrlich now joins Gladstone’s senior team, where he’ll help expand the gallery’s work with contemporary artists and deepen its reach across institutional and collector networks. 

Max Falkenstein, a senior partner at Gladstone, told ARTnews that the gallery had been searching for someone who could bridge primary and secondary markets, and Ehrlich’s experience made him a standout. He also emphasized Ehrlich’s eye, noting his talent for pairing emerging and established artists, even within a market-driven context. “Julian has a real gift for working with artists and engaging with collectors—he understands both the primary and secondary markets, which is exactly what we were looking for,” Falkenstein said.

For Ehrlich, the move marks a continuation of the connective work he championed at auction—using market knowledge and historical curiosity to bring overlooked artists into the spotlight. At Christie’s, he often focused on artists who hadn’t yet had robust market exposure and helped bridge gaps between collectors, institutions, and unfamiliar names.

During his tenure at Christie’s, he helped set records for artists like Ana Mendieta, Ed Clark, and Lynne Drexler, while also advising on major consignments from the Adam Lindemann and Rosa de la Cruz collections. Before that, he worked in Sotheby’s postwar and contemporary art department.

Ehrlich describes his style as “always saying yes to learning something new.” That mindset has guided his approach to everything from client strategy to organizing inclusive sales that make room for unexpected juxtapositions—like pairing Rosemarie Castoro with Donald Judd.

At Gladstone, which maintains locations in New York, Brussels, and Seoul, Ehrlich will be stepping into a gallery known for championing both visionary contemporary practices and the legacies of major historical figures.

Correction, 5/19/25, 11:30 a.m.: A previous version of this article misstated Ehrlich’s age. He is 29, not 27.

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The Headlines

WOMEN SHINE AT CHRISTIE’S SALE. Marlene Dumas’s Miss January (1997) has set a new auction record for the most expensive artwork by a living woman artist, taking in $13.6 million (all quoted prices include buyer’s fees) at Christie’s 21st century evening sale May 14, reports Karen K. Ho for ARTnews. Overall, “after two nights of decent, not disastrous auctions,” writes Ho, the auction house’s sale continued that trend, yielding $96.4 million. Fourteen blue-chip artists led the evening, including Jean-Michel Basquiat with Baby Boom (1982), which sold for $23.4 million. Much of the attention was on women artists, however, including Simone Leigh, whose 10.5-foot-tall bronze sculpture Sentinel (2020) sold for $5.7. That result also broke the artist’s 2023 record sale of Las Meninas II (2019) for $3 million. “It was women that carried the night, and that was very exciting,” said art adviser Abigail Asher. “What can I say? Maybe it’s because I’m a feminist.”

MODEL IN PAINTING IDENTIFIED AS LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. A mysterious painting of a soldier undressing next to a body of water as he prepares to join another young man who is swimming, has been identified as a portrait of Lawrence of Arabia, reports the Times. For years, the National Trust questioned whether the painting, which hung in Lawrence’s home for some 60 years, also depicted its owner, a storied British archaeologist, military strategist, and writer known for his leadership in the Middle East during World War I. Now, experts say the artwork by Henry Scott Tuke, who met Lawrence in 1922, is modeled after the latter. However, Tuke made Lawrence appear younger than he was at the time he made the portrait. In fact, the artwork, titled Picture of Gray — an RGA soldier on a beach, may have been inspired by Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray, in which the central character remains young, while his painted portrait ages. “It’s an imagined and idealized work, not an actual portrait of Lawrence in 1922,” said John Chu, senior curator for the trust.

The Digest

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has been gifted more than 6,500 artworks from the renowned photography collector Artur Walther and the Walther Family Foundation. The donation includes exceptional postwar and contemporary photography from around the world, and a special showcase of works from the collection by African photographers will be exhibited in the Met’s Michael C. Rockefeller Wing when it opens later in May. [The Art Newspaper]

The ancient Peruvian archaeological site and pre-Columbian city known as Chan Chan, has been vandalized with obscene graffiti. Officials are searching for suspects, and those responsible for damaging the UNESCO World Heritage Site face up to six years in prison. [Artnet News]

The transgressive art of the late British artist Helen Chadwick gets a rare retrospective at Hepworth Wakefield from May 17 to October 27. “Chadwick had a genius for evoking the slippage between desire and disgust,” writes Skye Sherwin of the artist whose influential practice was cut short when she died unexpectedly at the age of 42. [The Guardian]

The city of Paris will not pay the full €3 million ($3.36 million) in losses related to months of migrant occupation of the city’s Gaîté Lyrique art center. The institution’s leaders say they were promised compensation for financial costs incurred over five months of closure and the forced use of its building as living quarters by hundreds of young migrants. [Libération]

The Jameel Arts Center in Dubai, which supports artists and creative communities, is one of three institutions to have been awarded the medal of excellence in the inaugural Art Basel Awards, which recognizes those “shaping the next generation of cutting-edge artistry.” [Art Jameel]

The Kicker

SCROLLING THE CHINESE CLASSICAL ART MARKET. When a 700-year-old calligraphy scroll by Rao Jie sold in April for 25 times its low presale estimate at HK $213.5 million ($27.5 million), following a whopping, 95-minute bidding war at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong, the news understandably made some headlines. But if you’re only hearing about it now, that may also be because the outlook for the Chinese classical art market remains cautious, according to Enid Tsui, writing for the South China Morning Post. Overall, Hong Kong auction results have been declining, including a “sharper drop” for modern and contemporary art auctions, due to Chinese economic slowing, according to the Mishcon de Reya China Art Market Report 2025. Steven Zuo, head of Sotheby’s classical Chinese Paintings, explains demand for calligraphy from Rao Jie’s lifetime, during China’s Sung and Yuan dynasties, the pinnacle of the art form, is reliably strong, and therefore not reflective of a wider market trend. What’s more, this 14th-century, 20-foot-long, cursive-script calligraphy containing two prose pieces once belonged to the Qing imperial collection. “The prolonged bidding war over the work by Rao Ji was an exception rather than a reflection of the general market sentiment,” reasons Benjamin W. Yim, an experienced collector of Chinese art.

After two nights of decent, not disastrous auctions, the May 14 Christie’s 21st century evening sale continued the trend, yielding $96.4 million on a presale low estimate of $79.5 million.

That number is lower than the ones for marquee sales held in the same category at Christie’s. The house’s 21st century sale in May 2024 posted $114.7 million for 57 lots—some $34.4 million of which came via works from the Rosa de la Cruz collection. And the same sale at Christie’s this past November had 42 lots and yielded $106.5 million.

There were admittedly fewer lots on Wednesday night. Of the 39 lots offered, 24 of them had minimum price house guarantees and 17 had third-party guarantees. Four of the 39 lots didn’t sell and three lots were withdrawn, resulting in a sell-through rate of 90 percent before withdrawals and 81.4 percent including them.

Multiple art advisers told ARTnews that the results could have been much worse, considering the recent fires in Los Angeles, the impact of new tariffs, volatility in the stock markets, and uncertainty about the future. Plus, multiple reports have noted large declines in auction sales of contemporary art last year.

“The market is funny right now,” art adviser Laura Lester told ARTnews. “Especially at the top end, if people can wait, they are waiting. It’s obviously an amazing time to be a buyer looking for opportunities. And I think the sales are evidence of that.”

Abigail Asher, another adviser, said of the sale “there’s still clearly activity, but it has to be at the right price levels.” Ana Sokoloff, also an adviser, called the sale “lackluster.”

A selection of 14 works by blue-chip artists that once decorated the home of Ago Demirdjian and ARTnews Top 200 collector Tiqui Atencio led the auction. Notably, Bicho, a 1960 sculpture by Lygia Clark, was withdrawn prior to the sale, and the works Gray Panel II by Ellsworth Kelly (est. $2 million to $3 million) and “Untitled” (March 5th) #2 by Felix Gonzalez-Torres (est. $500,00 to $700,000) were bought in.

The top lot by estimate ($20 million to $30 million) was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Baby Boom (1982), consigned by mega-collector Peter M. Brant (who formerly owned ARTnews). The seven-foot-wide painting hammered at exactly $20 million, or $23.4 million with fees, after eight bids, going to a buyer on the phone with Christie’s global president Alex Rotter.

That work was followed by Marlene Dumas’s Miss January (1997), which came from the Rubell Family Collection with an estimate of $12 million to $18 million. The nine-foot-tall painting opened at $9 million and hammered at $11.5 million, or $13.6 million with fees. A buyer on the telephone with Sara Friedlander, Christie’s deputy chairman for postwar and contemporary art, won the bid. This result scored a record for Dumas, now the world’s most expensive living female artist.

Some said the sale of the Dumas work was energizing. “In this uncertain world,” Asher said, “to see an object of such raw power and such feminist presentation reach a world record for a living female artist was really exciting.” But others were quick to point out that the bidding lasted just one minute and there wasn’t much activity surrounding the work. Lester called the sale of the piece “unexciting.”

Either way, Dumas has officially surpassed the record set by Jenny Saville in 2018. Saville’s nude self-portrait Propped (1992) sold for £9.5 million ($12.4 million) against an estimate of £3 million to £4 million in October 2018 at Sotheby’s London.

Work by another living female artist, Simone Leigh, seemed to garner more excitement. Bidding for Leigh’s 10.5-foot-tall bronze sculpture Sentinel (2020) started at $2.6 million, and the piece ultimately hammered at $4.7 million, or $5.7 million with fees, on a high estimate of $5.5 million. The winning bid was a buyer on the phone with Maria Los, Christie’s deputy chairman and head of client advisory for the Americas. The sale broke the artist’s previous auction record of $3 million, set by the sale of Las Meninas II (2019) during the Sotheby’s contemporary evening sale in May 2023. Leigh could be seen watching the sale of Sentinel on a livestream while attending MoMA PS1’s gala tonight.

Other top lots included Cecily Brown’s Bedtime Story and Ed Ruscha’s Blast Curtain from the home of Atencio and Demirdjian. Both works had high estimates of $6 million. Bedtime Story continued the trend of women artists commanding interest, hammering at $5.1 million or $6.2 million with fees. By comparison, Blast Curtain hammered at $4.6 million, or $5.6 million with fees.

Interest in female artists extended to Danielle Mckinney’s 2021 portrait The Fool, which had a high estimate of $70,000. A 4.5-minute bidding war erupted between a buyer in the room, an online bidder, and a buyer on the phone with Salome Tan Bo, Christie’s vice president of Impressionist and modern art and regional director for China. The online bidder was the eventual winner, with a hammer price of $165,000, or $207,900 with fees.

In addition to the benchmarks set by the Dumas and Leigh works, a new record was set for painter Louis Fratino after You and Your Things (2022) sold for $756,000 including fees.

In addition to Baby Boom, Brant also consigned John Currin’s Jaunty & Marne (1997), which also hammered at its low estimate of $2.5 million, or just over $3 million including fees.

Brant was also behind the withdrawal of an untitled 1988 Christopher Wool work that spells out “Helter Helter” and was estimated at $3.5 million to $5.5 million. He also had consigned Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Can Over Coke Bottle (1962), the last lot from Christie’s 20th century sale on Monday night, which was also withdrawn. Artnet News’s Katya Kazakina previously reported the consignments for the works by Currin and Wool.

“I have a lot of clients who are feeling very cautious right now, and this is just not the time to make a big swing,” Lester said. “And obviously, these auctions are pulling from the very top end of the market, and they’re very affected by this climate.”

The evening ended on a high note, with the sale of Emma McIntyre’s Up bubbles her amorous breath (2021). The painting garnered interest from commission bids, three specialists on the phones, and a bidder in the room before selling to a buyer on the telephone with Los for a hammer price of $160,000, or $201,600 including fees, multiples of its $70,000 high estimate. The painting, which did not have a guarantee, also set a new auction record for the artist.

“It was women that carried the night, and that was very exciting,” Asher said. “What can I say? Maybe it’s because I’m a feminist.”

A Marlene Dumas painting hammered for $13.6 million during a Christie’s sale tonight, making the South African painter the most expensive living female artist at auction.

The painting, titled Miss January (1997), had an estimate of $12 million to $18 million, just about ensuring that it would break a record. It was also a last-minute consignment from the collection of the Rubell Family, which regularly appears on the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list. It also had a third-party guarantee.

The Dumas portrait sold relatively quickly and was ultimately won by an anonymous telephone bidder represented by Sara Friedlander, Christie’s deputy chairman for postwar and contemporary art.

Bidding opened at $9 million. When it finally hammered at $11.5 million before fees, the salesroom burst into applause.

Miss January finds Dumas revisiting her very first known drawing, Miss World, which she made 30 years earlier, when she was just 10 years old. The title of the painting also refers to Dumas’s first survey exhibition, “Miss Interpreted,” which took place at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum in 1992, and to her 1988 painting Misinterpreted, which is often considered a self-portrait.

Dumas broke the record set by Jenny Saville in 2018 after the nude self-portrait Propped (1992) sold for record-shattering £9.5 million ($12.4 million) against an estimate of £3 million to £4 million in October 2018 at Sotheby’s London.

The previous auction record for Dumas was for the 1995 work The Visitor, which sold in July 2008 for $6.33 million (£3.18 million including fees) at Sotheby’s London.

Among the top 10 overall auction results for Dumas, seven exceeded high estimates after buyer’s premiums, and six of the sales took place in New York.

Between 2022 and 2024, 15 works by Dumas have sold at auction, but only five went for $1 million and up, and only two of those seven-figure sales exceeded high estimates after fees were included.

Most of the works by Dumas that appeared at auction during this three-year period were sold in Paris, London, and Hong Kong, according to the data from the Artnet Price Database.

The Rubells’ consignment of the painting Miss January was notable, in that the family has rarely sold art from its holdings. In 2013, Don Rubell told the New York Times, “In 50 years of collecting, we’ve put together over 5,000 pieces and we’ve sold less than 20.”

The painting had previously appeared at the Rubells’ private museum in Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach last December.