Christie`s and Sotheby`s end the year with record sales

auction house Christie’s reported record results this year. According to its press release, the auction house’s sales totaled $8.4 billion, up 17% from 2021 (in dollars) and is “the highest annual figure in the history of the art market.” The auction house Sotheby`s also expects record sales this year.

Auctions brought Christie`s $7.2 billion, the company earned another $1.2 billion from closed sales. Commenting on the results, the auction house’s CEO Guillaume Cerutti noted that despite “challenging macroeconomic conditions”, they managed to achieve a record due to, among other things, “the flexibility of the art and luxury markets and the remarkable success with the sale of several large collections.”

Among such collections is that of Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, who died in 2018, but long before that he bequeathed to charity the proceeds from the sale of his vast collection, spanning 500 years of art history. It was sold for $1.62 billion, becoming the most expensive collection ever sold by Christie’s. At the same time, five works of art from it, including works by Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin, went for more than $ 100 million each. As follows from Christie’s reporting, buyers from North and South America accounted for the largest share in sales this year – 40% (35% a year earlier). The share of buyers from Europe, the Middle East and Africa did not change compared to last year and amounted to 34%. But the share of buyers from Asia has declined markedly – from 31% to 26%.

The auction house Sotheby`s has not yet published the final report. However, last week he said that by December 14, his sales amounted to $6.4 billion. And with the company still having about 30 auctions before the end of December, it is expected that total sales will reach $8 billion, which is the highest figure for the entire 278-year history of Sotheby`s, reports edition artnet.

Alena Miklashevskaya