With a nearly 30 percent rise in auction volume over the results from last October, the London art market may not yet be on an upswing, but the mix of property and the estimate levels are at least returning to some sort of equilibrium. The auctions held by Bonhams, Christie’s, Phillips, and Sotheby’s netted £179 million, or $234 million, in sales. And while the overall hammer ratio was only .95, the proportion of lots sold above the estimate range and below was equal. (Last year, too, Christie’s held part of the multicontinent Josefowitz sale in London, which inflated the numbers a bit, so I kept those out of the comparison.)

This year, the auction houses were aggressive in their management of the sales. (They withdrew 18 lots with a total presale value of £7.57 million, or nearly 5 percent of the presale value.) And as I noted on Sunday, Phillips and Sotheby’s combined sold only half of what Christie’s was able to bring to market. (In a rare occurrence, Sotheby’s and Phillips had similar auction totals, at $38 million and $31 million, respectively.)