NEW YORK (AFP) — A Francis Bacon self-portrait failed to sell at auction in New York Wednesday, in another sign the souring economy is having a crushing effect on fall season art sales.
Bacon's 1964 "Study for Self Portrait" -- billed as a highlight of Christie's contemporary art auction -- was estimated to take in some 40 million dollars.
But when the bidding stopped at 27.4 million the esteemed auction house halted the proceedings, to a chorus of gasps.
A Bacon triptych went under the hammer in New York last May for 86.2 million dollars, a record for the British painter.
Seventy-five contemporary works were on sale Wednesday. Among the most important lots was a Jean-Michel Basquiat painter of a boxer, owned by Metallica co-founder and drummer Lars Ulrich, which fetched just over 13.5 million dollars but short of the record 14.6 million for a Basquiat.
The global financial tsunami has not spared the art market, and sales of impressionist, modern and contemporary works since the fall season kicked off November 3 have been well below previous levels.
The number of unsold works has often exceeded 30 or 40 percent of lots this month, and barring a few notable exceptions the sales prices are on the whole lower than the estimates for the majority of pieces.
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