ABOVE: Detail from Paul Gauguin’s Deux Femmes (1902), which sold for £12,328,000 last week at Sotheby’s.

The Telegraph writes today with a certain dry wistfulness about the art auctions’ recent return to “irrational exuberance,” in the words of one observer, but it cautions that the huge Sotheby’s sale of Impressionist and modern art, which racked up total sales of £130 million, is not really a return to the overblown sales of the 1980s. For one thing, the number of paintings under the hammer at last week’s sale is quite large in comparison to the auctions of 20 years ago, when a big sale might clock in at 30 to 40 top-drawer items. The Sotheby’s sale last week topped 70 pieces, and a similar Christie’s sale broke the 100 item-mark, so the auction houses are certainly doing record-breaking sales, but they’re having to churn through dozens more paintings a night to get there.

Paul Gauguin’s Deux Femmes, above, for instance, sold for its lowest estimate (Sotheby’s added on the $1.3 million for their fee) and had only 2 bidders. The Impressionist market, the Telegraph says, is looking exhausted, with fewer good pieces coming up for sale. And the market has also moved on, these days favouring later modern pieces from the 1920s and 30s. On an optimistic note, however, the Telly notes that the buyers at these auctions are a more diverse group geographically and the number of collectors paying more than £1 million for a work has increased times three since the 80s. More buyers, paying more, but the overall picture for Impressionist auctions is looking a little, um, impressionistic.

LINK: Telegraph > Art sales: return to ‘irrational exuberance’