The two biggest auction houses recently released their 2025 numbers, showing a 17 percent sales jump at Sotheby’s and a nearly 7 percent rise at Christie’s. Now, a year-end report from art market research and analysis company ArtTactic delves into the details of the art sales from all the major auction houses. 

The auction market rebounded to $4.55 billion, up some 11.1 percent from 2024, ArtTactic finds. Among Old Masters, Impressionist and modern art, the strongest historical categories, year-on-year growth was 42.3 percent. Soft markets are often met with a “flight to quality,” to time-tested material, and this report seems to indicate 2025 was no exception, as contemporary and post-war art lagged behind.

Driving that recovery were a number of historic single-owner sales, including the estates of Leonard Lauder, Cindy and Jay Pritzker, and Pauline Karpidas. Prominent estates sold for an impressive $884.9 million in total, accounting for a remarkable 32.9 percent of auction sales in the year’s second half. 

The re...