Renoir Portrait Sells for $18.1 Million but Market Is Still Soft

NEW YORK — A velvety red and blue Renoir portrait of a young girl stirring a cup of chocolate sold for $18.1 million at Sotheby’s Monday night, but the sale did nothing to revive the otherwise falling art market.

Renoir’s “La Tasse de Chocolat,” the centerpiece of the Henry Ford II Collection, sold to a private Japanese collector in bidding that jumped in fits and starts.

The softness of the once robust art market was shown by the failure of 35% of the works on sale to meet the rock-bottom price for sale and 14 more fell well below their pre-sale estimates.

“The results were not as we anticipated,” said Sotheby’s President John Marion. “It’s a matter of assessing the market and where it goes from here.”

Modigliani’s “Portrait of Morgan Russell,” a portrait of the famed American painter, was one of the casualties. Considered one of the top Modiglianis around and estimated at $8 million to $10 million, it could only muster a bid of $6.5 million and was not sold. Picasso’s “La Bohemienne,” estimated at $3 million to $4 million, passed with a high bid of $2 million.