After the highs of London's pounds 600 million Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary Art sales, it was down to earth last week with a series of Old Master sales that mustered a more meagre pounds 72 million.
Sotheby's began proceedings with a pounds 39 million evening sale that just met the pre-sale estimate in spite of a long list of casualties. These included a pair of massive, rather formal, full-length portraits - of the 3rd Baron Monson and Lady Monson by Pompeo Batoni and George Romney respectively - that were being sold by the 12th Lord Monson. He was hoping for at least pounds 3 million for the duo.
An ominous sign was the failure of a playfully erotic painting of lovers by Fragonard that would normally have attracted Russian bidding, but found no takers at pounds 2 million.
Asian bidding took up the slack, however, and was evident in the competition for a rare to the market masterpiece by German Renaissance painter, Lucas Cranach the Elder. The subject, an adulteress defying a medieval lie-detector test, is as captivating as the composition and execution of the painting, which eventually sold to an American collector for a record pounds 9.3 million.
Winning Asian bids were made for a contemplative still-life by 17th century Dutch painter Willem Claesz Heda at pounds 2.9 million, and an arresting, life-size portrait from Castle Howard of a young boy in all his finery by Ferdinand Bol, a pupil of Rembrandt, which sold for a record pounds 5.2 million.
British art made its mark when a record pounds 2.7 million was paid for romantic artist John Martin's vision of heaven, The Celestial City and the River of Bliss. Painted as a companion piece to Pandemonium, a vision of Hell, which was bought by the Louvre Museum in 2006 for a not dissimilar amount, some think it might be heading for the same location.
Also among the top lots was a portrait of Henry VIII from Castle Howard. A reserved attribution to the Studio of Hans Holbein the Younger was reflected in the subdued bidding and the pounds 965,000 paid for it by portrait dealer Philip Mould. Another active buyer in the British portrait market was James Stunt, the 33-year-old gaming tycoon. He bought two stylish male portraits - one of the 5th Duke of Devonshire by Sir Joshua Reynolds for pounds 185,000 and another by George Romney for pounds 389,000.
Christie's had hoped to match Sotheby's with a minimum pounds 36 million sale, but were hit when six lots from the Alfred Beit Foundation in Ireland, including two Rubens sketches, which were estimated to add some pounds 6 million to the sale total, were withdrawn following protests from cultural lobbyists in Ireland.
They then failed to sell some of their most valuable remaining lots, chief of which was an 18th century view of Dresden across the River Elbe by Bernardo Bellotto, which carried by far the highest estimate for a Bellotto at pounds 8 million to pounds 12 million.
More worrying was the market for Pieter Brueghel the Younger. At Sotheby's, a painting of a winter landscape that sold in 2007 for pounds 1.9 million sold below the estimate for pounds 1.1 million, and at Christie's, three works by the artist were unsold. Last summer, one version of the artist's The Birdtrap, sold at Sotheby's to an Asian buyer for pounds 3.9 million, but last week another version was unsold at pounds 1.7 million.
Despite the lowly pounds 19 million total, Christie's remained upbeat. "This is not a market in crisis," said one expert. Another added: "But we have to keep re-inventing - taking things to new markets."
That is the challenge facing the Old Masters.