Christie's has reported auction sales totalling £2.1bn for the first six months of 2024.
Auction sales at Christie’s are down 22% year-on-year for the first half of 2024 from $2.7bn to $2.1bn.
The auction house has had to deal with various challenges over the six-month period, not least a cyber attack a week before one of its most heavily anticipated spring art auctions and a challenging macroeconomic environment.
Despite this, Christie's sold six of the 10 top-selling artworks so far this year – an increase from four last year – and recorded a rise of 3% in the number of bids placed online. It has also started the second half of the year with two record Old Masters sales.
The biggest contribution towards the total figure was £1.3bn came from 20th and 21st century sales but that too was down 24% on last year. Christie's decision not to hold evening sales of Modern and Contemporary art in London in June no doubt contributed to this downturn.
The biggest uplift was its so-called 'Classics' sector, which increased 81% year-on-year to $132m.
Sotheby’s also reported a 4.1% drop in auction sales to £125.8m in its financial report released this month. Its private sales also dipped from £19.5m to £19m.
CEO of Christie’s Guillaume Cerutti said: “Despite a decline in our total auction sales, resilience is the key word to characterise Christie's results for the first half of the year.
“In a challenging macroeconomic environment, we have maintained or improved on all the other key metrics by which we measure our performance.”
