This 12 months marks a second consecutive drop in annual gross sales for Christie’s, which launched its projected 2024 outcomes Tuesday (17 December). The entire figures supplied by the public sale home are estimates, as a handful of its 2024 gross sales have but to shut.
General, Christie’s netted $5.7bn this 12 months throughout stay, on-line and personal gross sales of artwork and luxurious items, a lower of “solely” 6% from the $6.1bn made in 2023, mentioned its chief govt Guillaume Cerutti in a web based press convention Tuesday. Final 12 months took a better whole, but additionally represented a steeper drop of 26% from 2022’s whole results of $8.4bn, a report for Christie’s.
This was a “12 months of two halves”, Cerutti mentioned. Whereas geopolitical instability, from wars to the US presidential election, continued to offer a “difficult setting for the artwork market”, a “sturdy autumn gross sales season” helped “flip issues round”: Christie’s made $3.6bn, or 63% of its gross sales, within the second half, in comparison with the $2.1bn it took in in the course of the first half of 2024.
This included the 12 months’s most costly lot at public sale, René Magritte’s Les empires des lumières (1954) from the gathering of Mica Ertegun, which was bought in New York this November for $121m (with charges)—setting a brand new report for the beloved Surrealist. Underscoring how troublesome it has been to obtain trophy consignments this 12 months, that portray was the one nine-figure lot to come back to public sale this 12 months; six works bought at public sale for $100m or extra in 2022.
Personal gross sales thrive amid uncertainty
One other development revealed in Christie’s outcomes is the sustained progress of personal gross sales, as public auctions proceed to wrestle. As Cerutti put it, “uncertainty triggers the necessity of reassurance from our shoppers”. Whereas gross sales at public sale fell 16% from final 12 months, these performed away from the general public eye amassed $1.5bn for the home—a 41% improve year-on-year. That is Christie’s second-highest non-public gross sales whole ever after the $1.7bn it achieved in 2021. Cerutti added that this 12 months noticed a number of “extraordinarily vital non-public gross sales”, however past this $1.5bn whole determine, declined to remark additional.
Putting 2024’s outcomes, and the shifting dynamic of auctions and personal gross sales, in a wider context, Christie’s whole figures this 12 months roughly match these of 2019, when it took in $5.8bn, however non-public gross sales now account for nearly double the $817m produced from such offers in 2019.
Christie’s doesn’t publish class breakdowns for personal gross sales, which means that it’s not attainable to determine how a lot of the general whole for 2024 was made by artwork versus luxurious items. Nevertheless, the home has supplied class breakdowns for public sale gross sales, which include some stunning outcomes. Regardless of headlines being dominated by the expansion in gross sales of luxurious items at public sale homes, the luxurious class at Christie’s really noticed the sharpest decline at public sale in 2024, dropping 31% year-on-year. That is possible because of a discount in general spending by shoppers in Asia, who sometimes lead this class.
The Previous Masters class, whose efficiency is outlined way more by its more and more restricted provide than by demand, noticed a pointy 29% lower year-on-year. In the meantime, Twentieth- and Twenty first-century artwork, nonetheless by far essentially the most worthwhile class at public sale, dropped 15%.
Regional cut up
Christie’s, like different main public sale homes, expanded its presence throughout the globe this 12 months—most notably in Hong Kong, the place it opened new headquarters within the Henderson Constructing. Complete public sale gross sales for Asia Pacific have been down by 8% year-on-year and the area’s whole share of Christie’s international public sale gross sales fell barely, from 28% to 26%.
In Paris this 12 months, public sale gross sales totalled €384m, a rise of 24% year-on-year. This was led by the €73m Barbier Mueller assortment, which set a world report for the one proprietor sale of African and Oceanic artwork.
Christie’s major competitor Sotheby’s won’t launch its 2024 outcomes till subsequent month, in accordance with a Sotheby’s spokesperson. It’s understood that Sotheby’s whole for 2024 will probably be lower than Christie’s.
Christie’s govt staff have been requested in the course of the press convention whether or not they had seen an uptick in consignments this 12 months because of Sotheby’s having modified its payment construction. Cerutti mentioned that whereas Christie’s will not touch upon the methods of its rivals, “public sale figures are public, and our H2 outcomes have been higher”.
Lastly, the public sale home addressed what may need been its largest story of the 12 months: the Might cyberattack through which hackers briefly took down its web site and reportedly harvested information from greater than 500,000 present and former bidders. The home confirmed that it reached a settlement settlement to a category motion lawsuit filed in June by at the least one consumer, though it was unwilling to remark as as to if there may be any additional ongoing litigation associated to the hack.
