Auctioneers Figures

Both Sotheby’s and Christie’s saw sales fall in 2015, a sign that the art market may be slowing.

Leading auctioneers in Ireland and Scotland enjoyed a solid, if unspectacular, year of sales in 2015.

Despite some welcome exceptions, 2015 proved a unspectacular year for Britain and Ireland’s regional fine art auctioneers with one in three salerooms experiencing a fall in sales.

There was no slowing down in the Contemporary art market as the latest sales in New York posted a record for any auction series.

Sotheby’s auction and related revenues were down 12% at $105m year on year for the first quarter of 2012.

Confirming the time-honoured ability of auctioneers to attract vendors in a recession, the UK’s top tier of regional salerooms enjoyed a largely positive 2011.

INCREASING revenues at Sotheby’s have given a further indication of the recovering art market. The company’s latest set of results shows a major turnaround for the first nine months of 2010, going from a loss of around $80m for the equivalent period in 2009 to a profit of $64.7m.

CHRISTIE’S have announced worldwide sales of £1.7bn ($2.57m) for the first half of 2010 – 46 per cent up on the same period for 2009.

SOTHEBY’S first quarter results have been boosted by February’s healthy Contemporary and Impressionist sales in London, showing the company on a decisive upward curve after last year’s slump in revenues.

RUNNING a tighter ship and targeting commissions to bring a better yield have helped Sotheby’s achieve the second biggest quarterly profits in the company’s history.

BEIJING-based auction house China Guardian has published record sales results for 2009.

CHRISTIE’S have announced a 24 per cent year-on-year fall in sales for 2009 to £2.1bn.

THE latest series of contemporary art auctions in New York showed how much the market has fallen since its peak. With sale totals down well over 50 per cent from last year’s autumn series held at the height of the boom, the extent of the damage caused by the current economic distress and diminished confidence amongst buyers was manifest. The question now is will prices stabilise or fall further?

GUARANTEES slashed, costs to follow. That’s the message from Sotheby’s as they announce third quarter losses of $46.2m. And consignors will have to be more realistic about the deals they can secure and their expectations at auction in future.

SOTHEBY’S dependence on the contemporary art market could hardly be clearer than in their latest set of figures.

CHRISTIE’S have announced sales of £1.8bn ($3.5bn) for the first half of 2008, a ten per cent increase on the same period last year.

CONTEMPORARY art may still be heading skywards, but the imminent buyer’s premium rate increases – and Sotheby’s latest set of results – show that pressure at the margins is as intense as ever.

SOTHEBY’S have closed the gap between themselves and Christie’s on worldwide sales in 2007, announcing a record $6.2bn of consoldiated sales to Christie’s $6.3bn.

Spink, the specialist London coin and stamp auctioneers, have announced auction revenues of £23.8m including premium for 2007.