Christie’s CEO Guillaume Cerutti and a host of other auction managers from his global team tried to put a positive spin on the company’s results for the first six months of 2023 during a conference call with reporters this morning, despite the immediate, albeit grudging, acknowledgment that global sales, at $3.2bn (£2.5bn), were down 23% on the comparable period of 2022.
Last year, total sales to the end of the second quarter were $4.1bn (£3.3bn), an 18% increase in US dollars from the first half of 2021 .
The house also reported another big fall in the first half: private sales, which hit $484m (£388m), down 19%. Last year’s comparable total was around $600 million, which also marked a drop from the 2021 level of $850 million.
The house highlighted what it described as positive points in the markets concerned. These included the influx of newer and younger buyers; the growing impact of online bidders; and the outstanding performance of categories such as rare jewellery, wine and handbags. Christie’s also cited an “over” 87% auction rate, which it said was unchanged from last year.
“After two exceptional years, Christie’s adapted to a different market in the first half of 2023 due to a more challenging macroeconomic environment,” Cerutti said. “In this new landscape, our performance remains strong with a continued influx of new customers and more global online participation: nearly 80% of all auctions at Christie’s have been placed online this year to date. »
Of course, it should be noted that the first half of 2022 offerings set the bar extraordinarily high, including an unprecedented slew of shipments, ranging from the famous collection of former Swiss dealers and connoisseurs Thomas and Doris Ammann, to that of tastemaker Anne Bass, to the treasure trove of surreal art collected by New York fashion executives Rosalind Gersten Jacobs and Melvin Jacobs.
Consider only one work from the Ammann collection, that of Andy Warhol Blow Sage Blue Marilyn (1964), recovered 195 million dollars after fees at Christie’s in New York last May, becoming the most expensive work of art of the 20th century ever sold. The most valuable painting sold in the first half of 2023 is that of Jean-Michel Basquiat The Big Show (The Nile) at $67 million.
The installation of “A Century of Art: The Gerald Fineberg Collection” at Christie’s. Photo: Katia Kazakina
The sum for Blow Sage Blue Marilyn is roughly tied with the entire collection of Gerald Fineberg, which was the most valuable sole proprietor collection sold at Christie’s in the first six months of 2023, and reached $210 million. Stellar offerings from the first Fineberg sale in New York in May got caught in the crossfire while market nervousness and macroeconomic factors, in particular the rise in interest rates, contributed to producing disappointing results.
Nonetheless, Christie’s cited the “dramatic” growth in digital engagement, noting that almost 80% of bids in all auctions are now placed online, soaring since 2019, when the rate was 45%.
Christie’s executives also pointed to a continued influx of new, younger buyers, saying 31% of all buyers are new to Christie’s with strong millennial engagement (38% of all new buyers were millennials or younger).
Examining the regional composition of buyers was also interesting. The Americas business is down slightly, representing 39% of the total compared to 44% in the previous year, while demand from Asia was 26%, compared to 22% the previous year, but still considerably down from 40% in 2021.
Christie’s said the first half of 2023 marked the highest total ever for luxury goods with strong sales of watches, jewelry, handbags and wine at $590 million, a substantial increase from 43% year over year.
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