For several auction seasons, art collectors, speculators, and the acquisitive newly rich have vacuumed up almost everything tossed up on the block. Quality counts, but for big names, from Monet to Warhol, the brand seems to count more. Estimates have been high but bidders have been willing to go higher. Price record after price record has been smashed. At times the records themselves seem a quaint relic of the not-so-distant past.

The art market shows no sign of slowing down. But unfortunately for the auction houses, collectors show no sign of wanting to sell. “It takes a lot of money to pry things out these days,” said dealer Andrew Fabricant of Richard Gray Gallery. “Most collectors are in the habit of trading up. They always want better, and that’s what has made the market so thin.”

The spring Impressionist and Modern art offerings at Sotheby’s and Christie’s include a handful of great things, and a sea of just so-so things. Not only do the evening sales include work priced under the $1 million mark, there’s even work under the $100,000 mark, demonstrating how hard it must have been to wrangle top-notch goods. “There’s a lot of things coming up on the market in term of volume,” said private dealer Franck Giraud. “In terms of quality, it’s not the kind of season where you have a fantastic collection or estate.” Sotheby’s sale is expected to total between $127-183 million, while Christie’s pre-sale forecast predicts $107-147 million.

Mr. Giraud, a former Christie’s expert, doesn’t blame the auction houses for the dearth of blockbuster pictures. The Impressionist and Modern art category is similar to the Old Master category – the best ones increasingly are locked in museums or holed up with collectors with no reason to sell. Indeed, the scarcity of merchandise at the top of the market has pushed many buyers into the contemporary scene.

“It’s very frustrating when you go to an auction house to get a great Impressionist collection,” said Mr. Giraud. “The collector will say, ‘It took me five years to make a great fortune, and it will take 15 years to put together a great art collection? No, I want it fast.'” Contemporary art auctions follow the Impressionist and Modern sales, but the first big wave is for the older set, with art from the late 19th and first half of the 20th century. Previews start tomorrow at Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

The well-timed demise of just one blue-chip collector might have given upcoming Impressionist and Modern sales the momentum to crest unprecedented heights. This didn’t happen. But there are a couple of small, juicy estates, and some remarkable rediscoveries – including a Brancusi sculpture and a Kandinsky panel. Such fresh-to-market material usually fares well.

Sotheby’s starts off the two-week sweep on May 3 with its evening sale. One of the sale’s two star pictures is a dynamic composition and early emblem of the push toward abstraction. A swirling mass of interlocking acid greens, periwinkle, blues, and tangy oranges by Russian-born Wassily Kandinsky, titled “Zwei Reiter und Liegende Gestalt (Two Riders and Reclining Figure)” (c. 1910) is estimated to sell for between $15-25 million.

“There hasn’t been a picture of this date and rarity in a long time, and there are no auction comparables,” said Sotheby’s co-chairman of Impressionist and Modern Art, Charles Moffett. “Anything is possible.”

Sotheby’s sounded confident about this Kandinsky, though last November a Kandinsky dated 1912, estimated to sell for more than $20 million, failed to rally bidders. The painting was completely abstract, and coming two years later than this season’s picture, reflects the artist’s peak period. But last season’s Kandinsky had a weaker composition and the colors were watery, seeming more like a watercolor than a painting.

This season’s Kandinsky also has some mystique. The work is something of a rediscovery; it even bears a mysterious signature, which might not be by the hand of Kandinsky. According to Sotheby’s Kandinsky gave the work to his friend, artist Alexej von Jawlensky, soon after it was completed. It was a double-sided work, painted on inexpensive cardboard and cut in half by Jawlensky. The artist reportedly gave one half of the double-sided work to his secretary, Lisa Kummel. Her descendents are the sellers at Sotheby’s. Jawlensky kept the other half for himself and it went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Both sides were recently exhibited there as part of “Kandinsky: A Relationship Revealed.”

The other clear standout is a self-portrait by German painter Max Beckmann, the 1936 “Self Portrait With a Crystal Ball,” in which the subject, dressed in a turquoise blue shirt, holds an orb as round and deep as the black circles ringing his eyes. Beckmann’s self-portraits, reflecting his Nazi era angst, are among the most coveted by his loyal band of collectors.

In 2002 cosmetics heir and Neue Galerie founder Ronald Lauder set the auction record for the artist, paying $22.5 million at Sotheby’s for Beckmann’s 1938 “Self-Portrait With a Horn.” The estimate for “Self Portrait With a Crystal Ball” is $10-15 million, perhaps reflecting the fact that the composition lacks some of the energy of the Lauder picture.

Beckmann didn’t need to glance in a crystal ball to realize bad times lay ahead. That same year, Nazi officials condemned his work as degenerate. Shortly thereafter, he fled to Holland. In 1938, Beckmann exhibits were held in Basel and Zurich. At the Zurich opening, Beckmann was pleased to find one of his most faithful collectors, Baron Rudolf Freiherr von Simolin, who bought the portrait and ignored Nazi rules, returning the portrait to Beckmann’s hometown, Berlin. Von Simolin’s heirs are now selling the work.

While Sotheby’s highlights are of the two-dimensional variety, the star lots at Christie’s are sculptures, historically a neglected category. The most universally coveted lot seems to be Alberto Giacometti’s 1947 “Femme Leoni,” a 65-inch-tall, emaciated, elongated female figure from one of the artist’s most fertile years. Art historians have called these works expressions of postwar alienation, but Giacometti claimed these figures were how he saw human form at a distance.

There are eight bronze casts of “Femme Leoni,” the first made on order for Peggy Guggenheim. The version at Christie’s was cast in 1960 and sold the same year by the Pierre Matisse Gallery to Chicago collectors Ruth and Harvey Kaplan for $9,000, who bought it with the help of Katherine Kuh, a contemporary curator at the Art Institute of Chicago. Mrs. Kaplan died in February, and the sculpture, estimated at $7-10 million, is being sold by her estate.

Another dramatic icon is an early version of Constantin Brancusi’s “Bird in Space.” The most famous of the 16 or so known versions date to the mid-1920s and 1930s and are long, sleek, and cast in shiny polished brass, emphasizing a soaring skyward motion. One such version reportedly sold for more than $30 million to former Microsoft president, Jon Shirley.

The one currently for sale at Christie’s was carved from gray marble and is shorter and plumper than other versions. The slender vertical form rests on a cylindrical stone base, stacked on a square stone base. “It is very beautiful,” said the head of Christie’s Impressionist and Modern art department, Christopher Eykyn. “It is probably the very first incarnation of the ‘Bird in Space,’ which is Brancusi’s most celebrated series.” The estimate is $8-12 million.

A renowned Parisian hostess, Madame Leonie Ricou, bought the Brancusi in the 1920s, according to Christie’s. Mme. Ricou owned three other Brancusis, and when she moved to Brussels with her second husband, they shipped the sculpture to the Banque de Bruxelles; a small sticker from the Banque remains affixed to the base. Mme. Ricou died in 1930, and the work remained at the bank until 1937, when it was sold – in the original crate, which is included in the lot – to a relative of the current seller.

Both Sotheby’s and Christie’s are handling material tainted with criminal attachments this season. Sotheby’s is offering two lots consigned by art dealer Ely Sakhai, listed as “Property of Exclusive Arts, Ltd.,” Sakhai’s former gallery. Indeed, this art was hardly exclusive. Sakhai bought originals from dealers and at auction, commissioned and sold forgeries to unwitting Asian dealers, then dumped the originals back at auction.

Arrested in March 2004, he will be sentenced July 5, but has agreed to a $12.5 million fine, and been forced to give 11 works to the government. Proceeds from the sale of a 1947 Henri Matisse (est. $3.5-4.5 million) and a Camille Pissarro landscape (est. $600,000-$800,000) will be used by Sakhai as part of his restitution agreement to benefit those defrauded.

Christie’s is selling a Degas pastel on behalf of the U.S. Treasury: Art dealer Arnold Katzen was forced to turn over Degas’s “La Coiffure” following his 2001 attempt to sell it, along with a Modigliani, for $4.1 million to a federal agent allegedly posing as a drug dealer laundering drug money. In February 2004, Katzen was convicted of conspiring to sell art without paying taxes.

The federal government evidently understands the merits of a lowball estimate: The Degas is expected to fetch $600,000-$800,000. During the sting, Mr. Katzen brazenly had asked $1.6 million for it.

“Impressionist & Modern Art” at Sotheby’s May 3 at 7 p.m. and May 4 at 10:15 a.m. & 2 p.m. Exhibition: April 24-May 3 (1334 York Avenue, at 71st Street, 212-606-7000).

“Impressionist and Modern Art” at Christie’s May 4 at 7 p.m. and May 5 at 11:30 a.m. & 2 p.m. Exhibition: April 29-May 4 (20 Rockefeller Plaza, 212-492-5485).

IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN WORKS AT CHRISTIE’S & SOTHEBY’S

Yo Picasso A 1955 oil by Pablo Picasso, based on Delacroix’s harem-inspired “Les Femmes d’Algiers,” prefigures the current rage for bad messy painting. From a series of 15, all of which collectors Victor and Sally Ganz bought in 1956 for $212,953. They kept the five best and unloaded the rest, including this one.
(Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art, May 3)
Estimate $15-20 million

Surreal price The current Max Ernst retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has raised the artist’s profile. The estimate for his elegant abstract 1927 painting of a bird, “Gracieuse,” seems reasonable compared to the multimillions commanded by the Impressionists and bigger name Modernists.
(Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art, May 3)
Estimate $800,000-1.2 million

Provencal trees Experts agree that “Les grand arbres au Jas de Bouffan” is a strong Cezanne, with a deft staccato handling of the paint. The seller is Takashi Hashiyama, a Japanese electronics inventor who opened his own museum and is now focusing on Japanese art. He paid $7.9 million to buy the painting at Sotheby’s in June 1996 – when the market was in a serious slump.
(Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art, May 4)
Estimate $12-16 million