Because I couldn’t help myself, earlier this week I headed into Manhattan for Christie’s evening sale of the $50 million collection of William Koch, one of the four Koch brothers who inherited their father’s oil-refining and engineering business. In 1983, Bill and one of his brothers, Fred, were bought out of the business by David, his twin, and the fourth brother, Charles. Charles and David would grow Koch Industries into a massive privately held industrial conglomerate with 120,000 employees. Bill used the money he received for his share of the family business to invest and collect rare wines, Americana, maritime memorabilia—he won the America’s Cup in 1992—and art, especially Western art.

At 85, Bill Koch is winding up his affairs. Last year, he put up his homes in Aspen and on Cape Cod for sale, and sold what remained of his wine collection for nearly $29 million. After assembling a Western art collection over the last 40 years, and selling some $17 million worth of Western art a decade ago, including Thomas Moran’s The Cliffs of Green River, Wyoming for $8.5 million, Koch seemed to be ready to part with the rest, which would take two days for Christie’s to sell. Thankfully, the evening sale began at a humane 5 p.m. The Western art crowd, who are very different from the contemporary art folks one usually sees in Christie’s salerooms, was pretty relaxed about the whole business. The auction room was crowded but not overpacked, and some of the bidders seemed more inclined to camaraderie than competition. Not that they held back: On Lot 4 of the sale, a woman bidding on Frank Tenney Johnson’s The Stampede tapped out when the numbers rose well above the $500,000 estimate. But in the relaxed atmosphere, auctioneer Adrien Meyer was able to entice her back in above the $700,000 high estimate. She put in two more bids with a seven-handle but was ultimately topped by an $800,000 bid, which drew groans of sympathy from several bidders seated around her. She lost the work to a buyer who took the Johnson, along with Frederic Remington’s bronze, Coming Through the Rye, for just under $10 million, as well as G. Harvey’s Texas Oil Patch painting for a little more than $735,000. Another buyer snatched up N.C. Wyeth’s Wild Bill Hickok at the Cards for $2.2 million (the estimate was only $1 million); and Remington’s prized nocturne, An Argument with the Town Marshall, from 1905, for $11.8 million (the estimate was $4 million). The same bidder also took home the cover lot for the sale: Coming to the Call, Remington’s own bid at making “modern” art, which depicts a moose on the shore of a lake illuminated by vivid green and yellow hues that simulate the gloaming of sunset. That painting sold for nearly $13.3 million. The buyer, who spent more than $27 million in just a few minutes on a Tuesday evening, had also set the record price for a Frederic Remington work of art… twice. I don’t know who either of these two big buyers was. Some dealer gossip pointed to Yellowstone and Landman creator Taylor Sheridan buying Remington bronzes, but I have no reason to believe that’s true. Much of the bidding was conducted by Christie’s relationship managers with ties to Texas and other clients who are big buyers. And it would make sense that a collector with Koch’s long-standing pedigree—he bought the top lot in 1984—would attract other big-money collectors who have been waiting their turn. That said, the woman seated in the saleroom who missed out on Lot 4 was able to buy a beautiful Alfred Jacob Miller painting, estimated at $2 million, for $4.7 million with fees—almost triple the previous record for a work by that artist. In the end, the room had an “Everyone got what they really wanted, no hard feelings” vibe. The hammer total for the evening portion was $55 million, over a $40 million aggregate estimate, which meant Christie’s went into the day sale having covered their guarantee. The next day, a number of artists saw prices that far exceeded estimates: A Charles Marion Russell painting sold for the artist’s second-highest auction price, at nearly $3.5 million; and a Maynard Dixon painting made $950,000 against a $250,000 estimate. Altogether, the two sales totaled more than $84 million. Another collection of Western art of this caliber is not likely to come to market anytime soon. But these prices will surely spark interest among both sellers and buyers.

The American art category has a reputation for an aging collector base. But when I spoke to Eli Sterngass, a partner in gallery Lincoln Glenn, he told me that he had sold three Hudson River School paintings in recent months to buyers in their 30s and 40s. As with Old Master paintings, younger collectors are figuring out that high-quality, historic work is much cheaper than contemporary art these days. Though Sterngass pointed out that some categories, like American impressionism, have not yet seen their estimate levels become as attractive.

Nevertheless, Childe Hassam’s Gloucester Harbor, from 1899, made more than $2 million over an estimate of $1 million in Christie’s sale of Max Berry’s collection. A Maurice Brazil Prendergast painting of the bridle path in Central Park sold for $2.3 million—nearly five times the estimate. Another canvas depicting Gloucester Harbor sold for $610,000, approximately double its estimate. Despite those successes, and a strong Mary Cassatt price in the day sale, there were a number of impressionist works that sold for prices below the estimate range, confirming Sterngass’s assessment. Meanwhile, in Christie’s various owners sale, there was a big price of almost $2.9 million for Sanford Robinson Gifford’s Sunset over the Palisades on the Hudson, from 1879. “That Gifford blew me away,” Sterngass said. “A Gifford of that quality hasn’t come up in a while.” Naturally, the work had a Rockefeller provenance. In the same sale, a deaccessioned Thomas Moran view of Venice made $250,000 over a $30,000 estimate. And there were strong prices for Winslow Homer, Eastman Johnson, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and Robert Scott Duncanson.

Tanner and Duncanson are two of America’s most famous artists of African descent. But their predecessor is the painter Joshua Johnson, who had two works sell at Sotheby’s on Saturday, including Lady on a Red Sofa, from 1820-25, which made a near-record price of $508,000. Naturalist Martin Johnson Heade’s painting of Brazilian hummingbirds had an estimate of $120,000, which was enough to entice an irrevocable bid. The work ended up selling for $700,000. A smaller version of an Augustus Saint-Gaudens bronze of a Puritan was estimated at $150,000, but sold for $350,000. (The larger statue stands in Springfield, Massachusetts. This smaller one had been owned since 1932 by descendants of one of the city’s founders.)

Good numbers are not always good news. You have to look back at the prices achieved in earlier markets—and segments of the American art category are still a ways off. For example, Grandma Moses, who only started painting in earnest late in her eighth decade and became famous in the 1940s and ’50s, saw a version of her Over the River to Grandma’s House, from 1944, sell for nearly $625,000. It was estimated at $300,000 and had an irrevocable bid. The record for a Grandma Moses painting is $1.36 million, paid in 2006 for a version of Sugaring Off, painted in 1943. She gave a number of different pictures the same title. A smaller version of Sugaring Off, from 1944, sold in November for a little more than $380,000. These are not the same painting, but it shows you that expectations going into this sale were much lower. Sterngass told me he got a call from a client just after the Moses hammered. “What the hell just happened,” the client asked. That price is good news, but let’s not get carried away. I’m not saying Moses went down by two-thirds and is now back up to half of what her work once was. But we do have a ways to go before American art is truly pricey again.

That’s enough for today. Mrs. Wallpower has been out shoveling snow. I guess I’d better go help.

Speak soon, M