Amajor cubist Picasso that was expected to fetch more than $30m (£18m) was pulled from Sotheby's this week, on the eve of the key sales of impressionist and modern art in New York. "Arlequin" (1909), came from the estate of the surrealist painter Enrico Donati, but the vendor got cold feet, fearing that it might not make its price, or worse, fail to sell in today's slumping art market. The withdrawal was one sign of increasing nervousness in the run-up to the autumn sales at Sotheby's and Christie's, which start on Monday.

The sales are, traditionally, a crucial barometer of the art market, anxiously analysed this year to see just how badly it has been hit by the global financial crisis. In November last year two evening sales of impressionist and modern art reaped $655m at Sotheby's and Christie's. This year the combined high estimates of the two firms' evening and day sales are $1.1bn (Sotheby's: $572m; Christie's $537m) but many fear that the actual totals will be dramatically lower totals.