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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle

The art market bubble bursts?

A portrait of Francis Bacon by Lucian Freud
An unfinished oil portrait of Francis Bacon, painted by Lucian Freud, sold for more than £5.4m at Christie's but had been estimated to sell for up to £7m. Freud painted two portraits of Bacon. The other was stolen from a Berlin gallery in 1988 Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
Christie's art auction
One of Bacon's own paintings, a portrait of Henrietta Moraes, was expected to fetch between £5.5 and £7m but was one of 26 lots that didn't sell at the Christie's auction Photograph: Carl De Souza/AFP
Christie's art auction
Andy Warhol's silkscreen Two Marilyns (Double Marilyn) was expected to fetch £4.5m-6.5m at the Christie's sale but went for the bargain price of £3,737,250. The image of Marilyn is a cropped PR shot used to promote her 1953 film Niagara Photograph: Carl De Souza/AFP
Christie's art auction
Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio was designed as a representation of the void by Lucio Fontana. It was expected to fetch £12m at the Christie's sale but went to a private buyer for just over £9m Photograph: Carl De Souza/AFP
Christie's art auction
Gerhard Richter's Claudius was another high-profile non-sale at Christie's. It had been expected to go for £6m Photograph: Carl De Souza/AFP
Christie's art auction
The Christie's sale raised a total of £32m, a sum that includes buyers' premium of 12% for the top lots. It had been expected to make £58-76m (not including premium) Photograph: Carl De Souza/AFP
Andy Warhol's Skulls
At Sotheby's art sale, Andy Warhol's Skulls - a set of 10 individual canvases - sold for £4,353,250, falling short of an expected £5m. It was the top lot at the sale Photograph: Sotheby's/PA
Sotheby's art sale
A close-up of Gerhard Richter's Abstraktes Bild (Rot), which went for £2.8m at Sotheby's but had been expected to reach up to £4m. The total Sotheby's sale realised £22m - roughly half of its highest pre-sale estimate Photograph: Ian Nicholson/Press Association
Frieze art fair
At least Frieze art fair brought home the bacon this week ... the fair reported that sales across the board had 'exceeded expectations' (though was being uncharacteristically tight-lipped about what those expectations had actually been) Photograph: Linda Nylind
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