If the crowd last night at Christie's Impressionist and modern art evening sale resembled a pastoral congregation, next week's offering of contemporary art should bring back all the maneuvering, sweating, and yearning of Caligula.

Last night Christie's kicked off a two-week marathon of major evening sales in New York that the big auction houses hope will see as much as $1.8 billion trade hands -- a sum the Wall Street Journal astutely pointed out would trump the $1.2 billion J.P. Morgan paid for Bear Stearns. The question on everyone's mind going into May Madness in the art market is whether or when booming art prices will be slapped silly by global economic turmoil.

Last night's celebrity-less affair indicated that the art market might not be going bust but it may be mellowing -- at least in the more polite sphere of Monet, Rodin, and Pissarro. For the first time in four years, Christie's failed to meet its presale estimate, pulling in $277 million against a target of $287 to $405 million.

Still, Christie's set six records last night, including a spot-on $41.5 million for a Monet. Shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos (the grandfather of the Paris-Mary Kate-Lindsay lothario) sold the painting at Christie's in 1988 for $12.6 million to last night's seller, the Nahmad family, auction stalwarts and megadealers with a Geneva warehouse stuffed with thousands of artworks.

Next week will be the true bellwether, with Christie's expecting to break the world auction record for a work by a living artist with Lucian Freud's portrait of a very portly woman, estimated to make $25 million to $35 million.  The record, previously held by Damien Hirst (he of the $100 million dollar skull), is currently held by Jeff Koons whose big pink shiny heart fetched $23.5 million last November. (That's just a fraction of the reported $80 million privately paid this spring for one of Koons's iconic Rabbits as part of a half-a-billion-dollar art transaction involving the estate of legendary dealer Illeana Sonnabend.)

Christie's biggest potential sale this season has been sent to Hong Kong -- a 14-foot tall Warhol Mao the auction house hopes will privately fetch a patriotic $120 million. That leaves Sotheby's with the star lot of the season -- a Bacon triptych it expects might make $70 million, on par with the most expensive piece of real estate  in New York right now -- the former gallery of troubled dealer Larry Salander.

When I recently toured the Met with Salander for an article in this month's issue, he was outraged over what he sees as the blatant market manipulation inflating the prices for contemporary art. He may well go ballistic if the price paid for a Bacon trumps the value of the palatial manse he could never really afford; particularly if Hirst (he of the tank-encased shark that Salander sniffs at) ends up buying the artwork -- a distinct possibility given that the enfant terrible-turned-mogul paid $33 million for a Bacon self-portrait last season.  --KELLY DEVINE THOMAS

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