This yr marks a second consecutive drop in annual gross sales for Christie’s, which launched its projected 2024 outcomes Tuesday (17 December). The overall figures offered by the public sale home are estimates, as a handful of its 2024 gross sales have but to shut.
Total, Christie’s netted $5.7bn this yr throughout reside, on-line and personal gross sales of artwork and luxurious items, a lower of “simply” 6% from the $6.1bn made in 2023, stated its chief govt Guillaume Cerutti in an internet press convention Tuesday. Final yr took a better whole, but in addition represented a steeper drop of 26% from 2022’s whole results of $8.4bn, a file for Christie’s.
This was a “yr of two halves”, Cerutti stated. Whereas geopolitical instability, from wars to the US presidential election, continued to supply a “difficult setting for the artwork market”, a “robust 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 through the first half of 2024.
This included the yr’s most costly lot at public sale, René Magritte’s Les empires des lumières (1954) from the gathering of Mica Ertegun, which was offered in New York this November for $121m (with charges)—setting a brand new file for the beloved Surrealist. Underscoring how tough it has been to obtain trophy consignments this yr, that portray was the one nine-figure lot to return to public sale this yr; six works offered at public sale for $100m or extra in 2022.
Personal gross sales thrive amid uncertainty
One other pattern revealed in Christie’s outcomes is the sustained development of personal gross sales, as public auctions proceed to battle. As Cerutti put it, “uncertainty triggers the necessity of reassurance from our shoppers”. Whereas gross sales at public sale fell 16% from final yr, these performed away from the general public eye amassed $1.5bn for the home—a 41% enhance 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 yr noticed a number of “extraordinarily essential non-public gross sales”, however past this $1.5bn whole determine, declined to remark additional.
Inserting 2024’s outcomes, and the shifting dynamic of auctions and personal gross sales, in a wider context, Christie’s whole figures this yr roughly match these of 2019, when it took in $5.8bn, however non-public gross sales now account for nearly double the $817m constituted of such offers in 2019.
Christie’s doesn’t publish class breakdowns for personal gross sales, that means that it’s not potential to establish how a lot of the general whole for 2024 was made by artwork versus luxurious items. Nevertheless, the home has offered 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 truly noticed the sharpest decline at public sale in 2024, dropping 31% year-on-year. That is seemingly attributable to a discount in total spending by shoppers in Asia, who usually 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 probably 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 yr—most notably in Hong Kong, the place it opened new headquarters within the Henderson Constructing. Complete public sale gross sales for Asia Pacific had been down by 8% year-on-year and the area’s whole share of Christie’s world public sale gross sales fell barely, from 28% to 26%.
In Paris this yr, 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 file for the one proprietor sale of African and Oceanic artwork.
Christie’s predominant competitor Sotheby’s won’t launch its 2024 outcomes till subsequent month, in line with a Sotheby’s spokesperson. It’s understood that Sotheby’s whole for 2024 will probably be lower than Christie’s.
Christie’s govt workforce had been requested through the press convention whether or not they had seen an uptick in consignments this yr attributable to Sotheby’s having modified its charge construction. Cerutti stated that whereas Christie’s will not touch upon the methods of its rivals, “public sale figures are public, and our H2 outcomes had been higher”.
Lastly, the public sale home addressed what might need been its largest story of the yr: the Could cyberattack through which hackers quickly 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 no less than one shopper, though it was unwilling to remark as as to if there’s any additional ongoing litigation associated to the hack.
