Russian Guessing

Eighty percent of the buyers for the auction house's sale of Damien Hirst works in London this week were Russian, Portfolio.com has learned from a source who works for Sotheby's in New York. And, not one the 56 lots up for bid on Monday night--the most valuable pieces in the sale--went to a U.S. buyer.

Sotheby's declined to comment on the information--but, interestingly, also said it does not plan to release a breakdown of buyers by nationality.

The auction house isn't required to make public information about its buyers, yet it often does. Sotheby's issued a breakdown for its July 9 Old Masters Evening Sale right after the sale (28 percent of buyers were U.K.-based, 13 percent from the U.S., and 2 percent Russian); the same goes for its July 1 Contemporary Art Evening Sale (49 percent of buyers were from Europe and 39 percent from the U.S.; Russia was not broken out separately from Europe).

But the same information was not provided for the September 10 Contemporary Art Sale, where less than 70 percent of lots sold, compared to almost 95 percent of lots at the contemporary auction in July.

Is Sotheby's decision not to reveal its buyers' origins in the middle of an ever more uncertain financial market simple coincidence? Or is it a way to avoid acknowledging a precipitous fall-off in American interest? Or to mask that a vast portion of the buyers were from Russia--where there has been an emergency halt to trading on the stock market?

The auction house did provide lists of the ten top lots from Monday evening's and Tuesday's sales. Several of the buyers were unidentified in any way; the rest were European collectors.

By Liz Gunninson