What a $32 million dinosaur can tell us about this year's art auctions

The sale of a $30 million sculpture cast 50 years ago might not tell you much about a $15,000 drawing made last month, but it could- and often does-give you some sense of where the winds are blowing

During a lovely spring week in May 2019, in what now feels like the halcyon days of pre-Covid life, seven paintings and three sculptures sold for a brisk $605 million.

Flash forward to this year, when it took 12 months and a 67-million-year-old dinosaur to amass top 10 results that still only managed to total $408 million.

To be clear: The top of the auction market is never a great indicator of how the art market is doing; it’s like trying to gauge the strength of the U.S. car market by looking at Bugatti sales. This has always been true,