Picasso, Giacometti works fail to sell at auction

A colourful Pablo Picasso portrait of his daughter Maya with a toy boat touted as a highlight of Sotheby's New York spring modern art auction has failed to sell amid a poor economic climate worldwide.

Dating from 1938, La Fille de l'artistea deux ans et demi avec un bteau (The Daughter of the Artist at Two-and-a-Half Years with a Boat) had never before appeared at auction and had been expected fetch up to $24 million US at the auction house's impressionist and modern art sale Tuesday night.

However, bids for the rare portrait which Picasso held onto until his death in 1973 and which has been in a private collection since the 1980s failed to reach the reserve price of $12.5 million US, according to Sotheby's vice-president Tobias Meyer.

Another of the sale's highlighted lots, a bronze sculpture by Alberto Giacometti entitled Le Chat and also expected to sell for up to $24 million US, failed to find a buyer. It also did not reach its reserve price, set at about $14 million US.

Overall, Sotheby's sold 29of the 36 lots on offer Tuesday, for a total of $61.3 million US far less than its low estimate of $81.5 million US. By comparison, Sotheby's spring 2008 sale featured 52 lots that sold for $235.4 million US.

Most of the works that did find buyers were ones Sotheby's had priced at less than $5 million US in its estimates.

Several Tamara de Lempicka paintings, including Portrait of Marjorie Ferry (sold for $4.9 million US) and Portrait of Duchess de la Salle ($4.45 million US), Claude Monet's Sailboat on the River Seine, Argenteuil ($3.5 million) and Piet Mondrian's spare Composition in Black and White, with Double Lines ($9.3 million US) were among the lots sold.

Rival auctioneer Christie's holds its spring sale of impressionist and modern art Wednesday evening.