Sotheby’s Holdings Inc., the auction house that sold a portrait by Picasso for $95.2 million last week in New York, said its first-quarter loss narrowed to $3.98 million as revenue surged.

The net loss equaled 7 cents a share, compared with a loss of $9.72 million, or 16 cents, a year earlier, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan-based Sotheby’s said today in a statement. Revenue rose 30 percent to $96 million from $74 million. The loss was narrower than the expected 9 cents a share, the average estimate of five analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

“Numerous collecting categories across the globe are experiencing growth,” Sotheby’s Chief Executive Officer Bill Ruprecht said in a statement.

Among first-quarter auctions, contemporary Asian art in New York raised $13.3 million in total sales, including commissions, and Chinese art brought in $15.7 million. An Old Master paintings sale in New York fetched $68.8 million.

Sotheby’s, the world’s second-largest auction house, typically posts small losses in the first and third quarters and larger profits in the second and fourth periods, when its biggest auctions are held.

Last week’s $95.2 million sale of Picasso’s “Dora Maar au Chat” to an unidentified bidder will count toward the company’s second-quarter results.

Posted: 05|9|06 at 8:22 am. Filed under: US News.