Retrospective · Christie's scored
20th/21st Century Evening Sale
Christie's, Hong Kong · 26 September 2025 · sale page ↗. Retrospective — scored after the sale on the results as recorded; lots withdrawn before the sale are not in the record; the model that scored it was trained on data through 2025-09-15, before this sale.
Result scored 2026-09-17 · final
Forecast 93% (range 83–100%). Result 100%: 35 of 35 scored lots sold, 0 unsold or withdrawn, 3 with no result recorded yet. Inside the range, 7 pts above the forecast.
Ten lowest-scored lots: 0 of 9 unsold vs 0 of 26 others (the model expected about 1 of the ten unsold).
Counts over the lots the card scored; the per-lot scores behind them are in the API payload. How a card is scored →
93% range 83–100%expected sell-through by lotof the 38 lots with a printed estimate
93%by low-estimate valueof $51M low estimate (USD; sale currency HKD)
35 32–38expected soldof 38 scored lots
0unscoredno printed estimate
2025-09-15model data through4,926,256 panel lots
Guarantees and irrevocable bids are not recorded; a guaranteed lot sells by construction. The card forecasts whether lots sell, not what they make. The range assumes lots move together as they did in the last season's evening sales.
Lowest modeled probabilities the ten lowest of 38 scored lots
| Lot | Artist | Work | Estimate | Probability | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | Marc Chagall | Fleurs ou Bouquet de fleurs aux amoureux | HK$5,500,000–HK$7,500,000 | 88% | sold |
| 12 | Paul Cézanne | Fillette | HK$3,500,000–HK$5,500,000 | 90% | sold |
| 25 | Bernard Buffet | Grand d'Espagne | HK$4,500,000–HK$8,500,000 | 90% | no result yet |
| 13 | Tamara De Lempicka | Femme assise | HK$4,000,000–HK$6,000,000 | 91% | sold |
| 30 | Xue Song | The Whisper of Fortune | HK$800,000–HK$1,200,000 | 92% | sold |
| 18 | MR. (B. 1969) | Untitled | HK$3,000,000–HK$5,000,000 | 92% | sold |
| 3 | Ji Xin | Pre-Spring | HK$600,000–HK$800,000 | 92% | sold |
| 20 | Park Seo-bo | Écriture No. 1-78 | HK$5,500,000–HK$7,500,000 | 92% | sold |
| 22 | Zao Wou-ki | 17.3.63 | HK$70,000,000–HK$90,000,000 | 92% | sold |
| 28 | Cheong Soo Pieng | Landmarks of Singapore and Malaysia | HK$3,500,000–HK$5,500,000 | 92% | sold |
In the last season's retrospectives the model's ten lowest-scored lots went unsold about as often as the rest; this is the model's ordering, not a judgment of the works.
By estimate band low estimate in USD
| Band | Lots | Expected | Low estimate |
|---|---|---|---|
| $50k+ | 38 | 93% | $51M |
Context evening sales at Christie's, trailing year
Over the year before the sale (2024-09-26 to 2025-09-25), Christie's sold 92% of the 577 lots with a recorded outcome in its 15 evening sales in the reporting panel; this sale is not in that record. That is the house's record, not a second forecast: the card above is computed lot by lot from this catalog.
Every scored lot 38 lots in catalog order, each with the lot-specific factor that moved it most
Unlock the per-lot scores The sale forecast, the ten lowest-scored lots and the model's validation are open. The per-lot table — every lot's probability and the factor that moved it — comes with a pass or a subscription.
Probabilities are the model's, floored at 1% and capped at 99%; the "why" column names the lot-specific factor with the largest pull — the artist, the estimate band or the estimate's position against the artist's median hammer — in the model's own vocabulary, and a lot none of them moves sits at the house rate. Within a sale the model's ordering of lots is weak (see the methodology); the sale-level figures above are where it has been validated.
Method and citation
- What is forecast. Each lot with a printed estimate is scored by TheBasis.Art's sell-probability model — a weighted logistic regression on the measured sell-through of the estimate band, the house, the artist, the sale type, the month and the category, plus the estimate's spread and its position against the artist's median hammer — trained only on houses and years whose archives record bought-in lots. Sell probability →
- The range. Expected sold is the sum of the probabilities; the 80% range is a normal approximation on that count with the binomial spread widened 1.9× for lots moving together, measured over last season's evening sales. Forecast method →
- Scoring. After the sale, over the lots the card scored: sold=false is "unsold or withdrawn" because the record cannot tell the two apart; the card is scored once half the lots have a result and is final once 95% have or 30 days have passed.
- Model. Trained on 4,926,256 panel lots through 2025-09-15, validated on 920,067 held-out lots (AUC 0.713, Brier 0.193).
- Cite as: TheBasis.Art, "Retrospective: Christie's, 20th/21st Century Evening Sale, 26 September 2025", https://thebasis.art/research/forecasts/14265. Issued 2026-09-17, scored 2026-09-17.
Press and data enquiries: [email protected]. The payload behind this card is served by the data API.