Sotheby's, Christie's and Others, doing well, Yazzy's at www.williamverdult.com

According to Bloomberg.com  London's five-day auctions may be a guide to New York's November sales: A buyers' revolt against escalating Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol values was offset by demand for Chinese and lower-priced Western art.

Sotheby's, Christie's International and Phillips de Pury & Co. took in 174.8 million pounds ($355 million) with commissions, missing their top target of 184 million pounds before fees while doubling last year's totals. A 2.5 million-pound Hirst spot painting failed to sell at Sotheby's. Two Warhols and two Jean- Michel Basquiats went unsold at Christie's.

While China's top artists are quadrupling their top estimates, the tide that lifted U.K. artist Hirst's auction record to 9.7 million pounds may be ebbing. If New York's sales go the same way, collectors of expensive Western contemporary art might have to mark down the value of their holdings.

Buyers ``used to fight for every piece, no matter how important or unimportant it was,'' said Vladimir Ovcharenko, owner of the Moscow-based Regina gallery. `` Now they are more selective. It all comes from the financial markets,'' which have had two months of turbulence.

Collectors including billionaire Eli Broad and hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen have bid up prices for the most expensive Western contemporary works fourfold in 11 years, including a 50 percent rise in 2007's first half, according to index-maker Art Market Research. The market for Chinese contemporary art is too new to have such an index.

November Outlook

Christie's will sell as much as $457 million of contemporary works at evening and day sales in November. Sotheby's said its evening sale will exceed $220 million.

At Christie's on Oct. 14, a Francis Bacon nude just scraped above its low estimate of 7 million pounds, before commission. Liu Ye's ``The Happy Family,'' with a trio of winged figures against a red sky, took more than five times its top estimate of 90,000 pounds.

Buyers at Christie's evening sale were 17 percent Asian, 18 percent from the U.K., 27 percent from the rest of Europe, and 35 percent from the Americas. Three percent were Middle Easterners, Christie's said.

At Sotheby's on Oct. 12, Yue Minjun's 1995 ``Execution'' set a high both for the artist and for a Chinese contemporary work, taking 2.9 million pounds including commission.

China, Hirst

At Phillips on Oct. 13, New York collector Howard Farber made 63 times his 1996 cost on Wang Guangyi's ``Great Criticism: Coca- Cola.'' The buyer was Farber's son-in-law, Larry Warsh, who paid 893,600 pounds with commission. New York dealer Alberto Mugrabi sold Hirst's ``Eternity'' butterfly mosaic for 4.2 million pounds pre-commission, more than the 3.5 million-pound top estimate.

At Sotheby's Oct. 15 sale of lower-priced art, Banksy's 2004 radio-carrying ``Gangster Rat'' took 42,000 pounds before commission from a telephone buyer, more than trebling the top estimate.

``I have customers in the media and luxury businesses, so I haven't been affected by the fallout in the City,'' said the graffiti artist's dealer Steve Lazarides, who bought three of Banksy's pictures at Sotheby's.

Sotheby's day sale beat its high estimate. All three auction houses missed their top estimates at their evening sales, aimed at the wealthiest collectors including hedge funds.

London finance companies may cut jobs next year and trim bonuses by 16 percent as the U.S. subprime-mortgage losses spill over into the U.K. economy, the Centre for Economic and Business Research Ltd. said on Oct. 8.

Sale Totals

Sotheby's, which is run from New York, took in 66.3 million pounds with commissions at its London sales, which had a pre-sale estimate of 48.8 million pounds to 68.4 million pounds before fees.

London-based Christie's, the world's largest auction house, just beat Sotheby's with a total of 66.6 million pounds including commissions. Christie's target was 55.6 million pounds to 77.1 million pounds before commissions.

New York-based Phillips's eight hours of sales totaled 41.9 million pounds as Farber's Chinese art collection doubled its top estimate. Phillips's pre-sale target was 26.8 million pounds to 38.3 million pounds.

The auctions overlapped with the Frieze Art Fair, which counted 68,000 visits from Oct. 10-14, including fair employees and dealers coming and going.