An estimate is not a price. It is the auction house’s bet on how much you are prepared to pay. And it should be read as a bet, not as a price tag.
An estimate is the preliminary valuation of a lot before the sale, a range from-and-to: 800,000 — 1,200,000, for example. It is set by the house’s specialist beforehand, resting on three things — what comparable works have sold for in recent years, the provenance and condition of the piece, and the current demand for the artist. The hammer can stop anywhere: inside the range, below the low end, or several times above the high one.
An estimate tells you not what the painting is worth, but how much the house expects to get out of you.
Why the low end is often set low
There is a mechanism here worth understanding before you raise your paddle. A low estimate is bait. An understated lower limit gathers more participants: people feel there is a chance to buy cheaply, the room fills, the heat rises, and the final price goes higher than it would have gone with an honest high valuation. An empty room knocks the price down; a full one drives it up. A full room is what the house wants.
Tied to the low end is another figure you will not be shown — the reserve: the secret minimum below which the seller will not sell. The reserve usually sits at or just under the low estimate. If the bidding never reaches it, the lot is unsold, however briskly the hammer came down.
A low estimate is not a discount you are being given. It is a hook you are being caught on.
What gets added to the estimate
Another beginner’s trap is to assume you will pay the hammer sum. You will not. On top comes the buyer’s premium — usually 20–27% of the hammer price — plus tax on that premium, plus sometimes an artist’s resale royalty. A painting that “went for a million” in fact costs the buyer a million two hundred and more. Plan from the total with commission, not from the handsome figure the hammer fell on.
What the estimate means for you
As a guide, yes, it is useful: it shows the order of magnitude in which the house sees the piece. As truth, no: it is a selling instrument tuned to warm up the room, not to report an objective value to you. A painting has no objective value at all — only the one two people agreed on, on a particular evening.
Do not ask what the painting is worth by the estimate. Ask what it is worth to you — and hold that figure when the room begins to heat.
— Evgeny Fleysher
Artist and engineer. Author of WHY? and The Spiritual Alphabet, creator of the Art as Healing project. Paints works built on sacred geometry.
About the author and the method →