#auction-results

#auction-results

It was a white-glove Christmas auction of singer and actor Bing Crosby's personal collection, which made a 100% sell-through rate and $6.7m at Sotheby's in New York last night against an estimate of $3.9m to $6.3m (totals include buyer's premium; estimates do not). Among the most festive lots were the musical arrangements for Crosby's 1954 hit musical film, White Christmas, which flew six times over the low estimate to fetch $19,050.

The night started with a sale of 13 lots from the estate of the late Chicagoan collectors Cindy and Jay Pritzker that surpassed Sotheby's high estimate of $88.5.m to bring in $91.7m ($109.5m with fees). A stellar group of 24 works by Surrealist heavy-hitters from an unnamed collection (marketed as "Exquisite Corpus") followed, generating $81.9m ($98m with fees), squarely within the group's estimate range ($66.7m-$98.9m).

Art collector Rachel Lambert "Bunny" Mellon's blue diamond pendant, known as the Mellon Blue, has sold for $25.5 million on Tuesday at Christie's Magnificent Jewels auction, held at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues in Geneva. The price achieved today is 22 percent less than what the diamond sold for 11 years ago. Adjusted for inflation, it's a drop of nearly 60 percent in value.