The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant

WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental. With bad weather coming, much of London may have been preparing to shut down early for Christmas last week. But Christie’s sale of Victorian and British Impressionist pictures on December 16th and Sotheby’s sale of Victorian and Edwardian paintings the next day were surprisingly busy.

Of the two auctions, Sotheby’s was by far more successful, fetching GBP4.4m ($7.1m) for works by some of the best-known names of the period, including Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Alfred Munnings, Dame Laura Knight and Charles Spencelayh. The cover lot, Spencelayh’s “The Old Dealer”, sold for a record price for the artist at auction. The buyer was David Mason, a London dealer who joined his father’s firm, MacConnal-Mason, when he was just 17. Mr Mason, who has seen recessions come and go in the 53 year he has been in the business, said afterwards: “Prices today reflect what is happening out there. People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.” ...

Our top articles ranked by reader popularity.

• Turn by turn
• Green enough?
• This week's top stories [11 December 2009]
• Crude calculations
• The week ahead
• Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
• The price of a puff
• Opportunity knocks
• The storm before the storm
• Flying the nest