May 7 (Bloomberg) -- Monet and Rodin failed to prevent Christie's International from missing its low estimate for an evening impressionist and modern art auction for the first time in four years.

Last night's sale in New York totaled $277.3 million as 14 of the 58 lots failed to find buyers. The auction had been projected to tally $287 million to $405 million. Europeans, taking advantage of a weaker dollar, bought more than half the lots, while U.S. buyers took 32 percent, compared with almost half at the previous impressionist sale in November.

The result suggests that at least $318 billion of credit losses and writedowns at banks, a slump in the U.S. currency and a dip in global equity markets may have slowed the international art market.

``It's a rational market that is slightly more rational than the last go-around,'' said John Good, a director of Gagosian Gallery.

Christie's said last night's total was still its third- highest for the category. The top lot was a $41.5 million cerulean blue painting by Claude Monet, showing an iron railway bridge over the Seine, near Paris. Christie's estimated that ``Le Pont du Chemin de Fer a Argenteuil'' would fetch about $40 million. An anonymous phone bidder set a record for the artist, outspending the previous high set last year by about $5 million.

The seller was the Nahmad art-dealing family, which bought the work for $12.4 million at Christie's in 1988.

Monet Lilies

``I'm very happy,'' patriarch David Nahmad said, standing in the crowded aisle of the Rockefeller Center salesroom after the auction. He was outbid for the evening's second-priciest Monet, the 1908 ``Nympheas,'' which fetched $11.7 million.

The evening's rejects included a garishly colored Venetian vista by Monet, estimated at up to $12 million; a tepid Van Gogh landscape, with a high estimate of $16 million; and a portrait of a chubby nude maiden by Renoir with a $5 million to $7 million range.

A dearth of museum-quality impressionist and modern paintings shifted the focus to sculpture, which accounted for 3 of the top 10 lots.

Alberto Giacometti's 1960 ``Grand Femme Debout II,'' a 9- foot-tall bronze of a woman, fetched an artist record $27.5 million, well above the $18 million estimate. The winning bidder was Gagosian Gallery, which declined to comment on the purchase. The artwork was one of five abstract forms in plaster and bronze by postwar Swiss sculptor Giacometti. Sotheby's offers another six Giacomettis tonight.

Moss-Waisted

``Grand Femme'' is an attenuated female figure, with a tiny Kate Moss-like waist and stick-like arms. It was originally a commission for Chase Manhattan Bank's Wall Street headquarters. Giacometti didn't visit the site, or New York, and the work was never installed there.

French sculptor Auguste Rodin also smashed records with his 1897 bronze ``Eve,'' estimated to sell for $9 million to $12 million. It fetched $19 million.

The anonymous seller acquired the sculpture for $4.8 million at Christie's in New York in 1999 and displayed the work outdoors. Eve has muscular crossed arms and her graceful head is tucked in shame.

Sale prices include a buyer's commission of 25 percent of the hammer price up to $20,000, 20 percent of the price from $20,000 to $500,000 and 12 percent above $500,000. Estimates do not include commissions.

Christie's sold $395 million of impressionist and modern art at its November sale in New York. The dollar is down more than 12 percent against the euro in the past year and reached a record low of $1.6019 per euro on April 22.

(Lindsay Pollock and Philip Boroff write on the arts for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are their own.)

To contact the writers of this story: Lindsay Pollock in New York at lindsaypollock@yahoo.com; Philip Boroff in New York at pboroff@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 7, 2008 01:10 EDT