Christmas is coming, which means Christie’s CEO Guillaume Cerutti went out of his way to bring some holiday cheer by analyzing the auction house’s 2024 data during his end-of-year press conference on Tuesday. Cerutti said the company’s expected sales of art and luxury goods this year total $5.7 billion, down about 8% from last year’s total sales of $6.2 billion.
During a Zoom press conference on Tuesday, Cerruti reiterated the rhetoric he used in July, when he described the market landscape as continuing to be “challenging.” “Despite the challenging art market environment, this has been a productive year for Christie’s,” he said on Tuesday. “We look ahead to 2025 with confidence.” Cerruti believes that despite the decline in totals, underlying performance indicators show strong fundamentals. “Our key performance indicators are an overall sell-through rate of 86 per cent, a price to low estimate index of 112 per cent and a number of bidders per batch of 3.7, which is up year-on-year,” he said.
Christie’s fortunes have improved over time, in line with encouraging results from Frieze London and Art Basel Paris in October. At its major auction in New York in November, the auction house brought in $486 million from its 20th Century Evening Sale. These include the most valuable work at auction this year – a work by Rene Magritte empire of light (1954) sold for $121 million. In fact, it’s the only film to top $100 million in the past 12 months. That same night, Ed Ruscha’s “1964” Standard Station, the ten-cent western ripped in half, The sale price exceeded $68 million, setting a new auction record for the artist. (art networkAccording to “Kenny Shah”, the buyer is Amazon founder and astronaut Jeff Bezos. )
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Cerruti proudly said that Christie’s not only sold the most expensive painting this year, but also the most valuable jewelry in 2024. In June, a 10.2-carat pink diamond, the Eden Rose, sold for $13.4 million in New York. The total turnover of the Magnificent Jewels auction was $44.4 million, with 90% of the 144 lots sold. New York’s luxury goods sales in December were then dominated by another gorgeous jewelry auction, with a total value of $49.2 million and 97% of the lots sold.
Not surprisingly, Cerutti’s focus is on the end of 2024; in July, Christie’s reported $2.1 billion in live and online auction sales for the first half of 2024, down 22% from the same period last year. In the first half of 2023, Christie’s in-person and online auction sales reached $2.7 billion. This figure has dropped 23% from $3.5 billion in the same period in 2022.
Although July’s private sales figures were not released, Christie’s CEO said on Tuesday that last year’s private sales figures rose 41% to $1.5 billion and accounted for 27% of the auction house’s total sales. (Private sales last year totaled $1.2 billion.)
The Americas accounted for 42% of global auction sales, and the number of new buyers of 20th/21st century art increased by 18%. Not only that, but more than a quarter of Christie’s buyers and bidders in the region are millennials or younger. That’s perhaps not surprising, given that 30% of the company’s customers are now 43 years old or younger. Changing demographics may be why 81% of bids in 2024 will be conducted online.
Cerutti also noted that in London, the number of bidders and buyers increased by 15%, including a 29% increase in new buyers. This is despite Christie’s removing its June evening sale in London from its calendar.
