Some 300 new auction firms have now been approved by the Conseil des Ventes (the French auction watchdog), but the anticipated launch of new auction groups has so far been on a modest scale, whether at national (Ivoire) or regional level (the Normandy-based Alliance Enchères).
In Paris, the trend towards associations of commissaires-priseurs, which has spawned Piasa, Rossini and Millon & Associés in recent years, has continued with Briest, Poulain-Le Fur and Aguttes teaming up under the ArtCurial banner, and Pierre Bergé consoling himself for failing to buy out Drouot by launching his own auction firm, Pierre Bergé & Associés, signing up commissaires-priseurs from three former études (Eric Buffetaud, Antoine Godeau, Frédéric Chambre and Raymond de Nicolaÿ).
The Chambre Nationale, the national body that hitherto represented all French commissaires-priseurs, is now concerned only with those staging court-order sales. Firms staging other auctions, including Sotheby’s and Christie’s, are represented by a new union, the Syndicat National des Maisons de Ventes Volontaires, presided by Hervé Poulain. The Syndicat sees its role as helping firms come to grips with the practical consequences of France’s auction reform, which Poulain calls “complicated and pernickety”.
He vows to “battle to reform the reform,” and also to fight hand in hand with the dealers’ union headed by Christian Deydier to abolish import VAT. New Culture Minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon told Poulain’s Syndicat in July that he supported their aims, but that any decision rested with the Finance Ministry.
Sales at Drouot dropped 15 per cent in the first half of 2002 to €335m (£216m); including sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, Paris auction turnover rose a modest three per cent overall to €402m (£259m).
Eyebrows will have been raised by half-year turnover figures that placed Christie’s and Sotheby’s behind Tajan. Laure de Beauvau Craon, head of Sotheby’s France, insists that it is “unfair to compare us with commissaires-priseurs, as we continue to export items [notably Impressionist and modern paintings] to London and New York that are not included in these figures.”
Christian Deydier, head of France’s national dealers’ association, the Syndicat National des Antiquaires (SNA), is equally reluctant to attach much significance to the interim figures. “Sotheby’s and Christie’s need time to get their act together,” he believes, adding, “then they’ll be steamrollers”.
He believes their arrival is “very positive” and a source of publicity for France and the Paris market, adding that “Competition is healthy: it helps you take a broader look. Before, we were dormant.”
Christie’s have programmed 17 sales between now and the end of the year, including their first Paris sales of wine (September 14), photography (November 16), Art Deco (November 18) and Asian art (November 26). Sotheby’s have scheduled just seven sales, including their first Paris venture into tribal art (September 30) and their first independent sale of Art Deco on December 2 (their Deco sale in May was co-organised with former partners Poulain-Le Fur).
It is becoming clear that Sotheby’s and Christie’s are taking a hard-nosed attitude to what they sell in Paris. Tribal art, 20th century decorative arts, books, and French furniture/objets d’art are among their priorities – although the market for the latter is proving highly selective at present. Despite the success of the Jammes Collection Part II at Sotheby’s Paris last March, Beauvau Craon, noting the dominance of American buyers, is “not sure that major photography collections sell better in Paris” than in London or New York.
French single-owner collections are thought to be a prime target for Sotheby’s and Christie’s, but few of these will come under the hammer this Autumn. Christie’s offer some relatively modest post-Impressionist and modern pictures from an unidentified private collection on September 29; Sotheby’s have the Huguette Berès Collection of Japanese prints, drawings and illustrated books on November 27, while their tribal art sale is billed as a “private European collection”.
Plus ça change? Au contraire…
PARIS: The knock-on effects of auction reform mean it’s all change for the new season: France’s traditional auction scene has undergone a major overhaul, with commissaires-priseurs retaining their monopoly for court-order sales only, and obliged to create new commercial entities if they wish to stage other auctions.
