Deutscher and Hackett’s first big sale of the year only had 55 lots, and only 47 of them sold. But the quality of the works on offer and bullish bidding has delivered the best result at an Australian art auction in 17 years with total sales of $16,998,750 in Melbourne last week.

No other Australian art auction had achieved such a high total for a mixed vendor sale (as opposed to a single owner sale such as that of Reg Grundy) since the art market boom year of 2007, when giddy buyers dropped $22.45 million at Sotheby’s sale of Important Australian art including works from the Qantas collection.