Christie's Year-End Results + Bonhams, Artcurial

With sales down 25%, CEO Cerutti is still pretty happy with the results + Bonhams & Artcurial have banner years in 2023 + Sotheby's announces 2024 auction schedule

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In This Issue

1. Sotheby’s Announces 2024 Auction Schedule: October is going to be busy in London and Paris; Hong Kong in September is a new auction window.

2. Bonhams 2023 Results: $1.14 billion in sales

3. Christie’s Ends Year with $6.2 billion in gross sales: Here are their topline numbers

For Paid Subscribers Only

1. What Christie’s said about: What the numbers mean; Whether there will be layoffs; Why sell-through and hammer ratios are important; The importance of

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Sotheby’s Announces 2024 Auction Schedule

In response to collectors, Sotheby’s has announced its 2024 auction calendar today. Exact dates will come later as the houses negotiate particular sales in each venue. But the broad calendar will be affected by Sotheby’s new facilities in Hong Kong and Paris. The Fall Hong Kong sales will move a few weeks earlier into the late Summer spot in mid-September. Paris will hold sales in mid-October around Paris Plus.

Much of the auction calendar stays the same with Old Masters in January in New York, Contemporary Curated moving to March 1st now that the Armory Show fair no longer happens that month. The London sales will take place March 6-7 followed by early April sales in Hong Kong. May is New York in the second and third week. London sees sales June 25-26 followed by Old Masters in early July. Mid-September sees the new Hong Kong sales followed by Contemporary Curated in New York. Frieze sales will take place Oct 9-10 in London and Paris Plus sales will follow a week later on Oct 16-17.

After what promises to be a tumultuous election in the United States, the auctions will take place the next two weeks in November. December will see Old Masters in London and Design in New York.

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Bonhams Results

Bonhams and the Bonhams Network: $1,142,000,000 (14% increase from 2022)

Number of Lots sold: 216,262

Number of lots sold over $1m: 62

Number of lots sold online: increased 45% but online auctions also increased 105% compared to 2022

Geography of buyers: North America: 30%; UK: 19%; Europe: 33%; Asia-Pacific: 18%

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Artcurial Announces Best Results

Announcing its best ever results, Artcurial reached €217 million in sales led by this Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Sacrifice to the Minotaur that made $6.2 million in November.

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Christie’s 2023 Results

Top Line Sales: $6.227 billion

Sales are still 7% above 2019 even if they are down from last year by 25%. If the Paul Allen sale was removed from the totals, sales would still be down 7% at Christie’s from 2022.

Private Sales: $1.201 billion

Christie’s was able to sell a work privately for more than $100 million, the highest value transaction for 2023 at the auction house. 

Auction Sales: $5.026 billion

Global Sell-Through Rate: 84%

Total number of lots sold: 45,000 

Global Hammer Ratio: 1.05

Luxury sales peak at $1 billion

New Buyers: 35% with 66% of those coming through online sales

Regional breakdown:

Americas: $2.571 billion in sales (51% of sales value)

Buyers from Americas account for 41% of global buying

EMEA: $1.650 billion in sales (33% of sales value)

Buyers from EMEA account for 31% of global buying

APAC: $805 million in sales (16% of sales value)

Buyers from APAC account for 28% of global buying

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What Christie’s Numbers Mean

Christie’s held a press call to discuss their 2023 results. Here are some of the issues that were raised along with response from Christie’s executives and our interpretation of their importance: