Christie’s, the world’s largest auction house, reported Wednesday that it generated $3.2 billion in sales in the first half of 2023. The figure represents a 23 percent drop from the result of $4.1 billion it achieved during the same period last year and 9 percent drop over the $3.5 billion achieved in the first half of 2021.
Christie’s reported that it generated $2.7 billion between January and June via online and live auctions, a 24 percent drop over the $3.5 billion it achieved during the first half of 2022. The remaining funds were generated through private sales, which has brought in $484 million in 2023.
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The $484 million private sales figure was also a significant drop from the channel’s performance in the first six months of 2022, when it brought in $600 million. In 2021’s first half, private sales brought in $850 million. The current slump follows several years of growth in the sales channel.
In a statement, Christie’s CEO Guillaume Cerutti attributed the drop in sales across public auction and privates sales to a “challenging macro-environment” now affecting the top end of the market.
In a statement, Christie’s pointed to an 87 percent sell-through rate as an encouraging sign amid the slowed market. The rate is on par with first-half results in 2022 and 2021, reflecting what Christie’s called steady demand among buyers.
39 percent of Christie’s buyers this year were based in the Americas, 35 percent in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and another 26 percent from Asia, according to the auction house. The number of Asian buyers was a sharp decrease from the first half of 2021, when Asia account for 39% of its clients.
The house generates the bulk its annual profits from redistributing the large estates of cultural philanthropists at the end of their collecting careers. The sales of key estates this year, among them from the collections of Gerald Fineberg, S.I. Newhouse, Paul G. Allen, Alan and Dorothy Press and Sophie F. Danforth, brought in $922 million in the first half of 2023.
Meanwhile, Christie’s said it is still continuing to place a focus on new and younger collectors as it looks to cultivate more clients who have the potential to become top collectors. Some 31 percent of all buyers in the first half of 2023 were new to the 250-year-old house. 38 percent of those new buyers were millennials, marking a small dip from the 34 percent seen in 2021.