This year marks a second consecutive drop in annual sales for Christie’s, which released its projected 2024 results Tuesday (17 December). The total figures provided by the auction house are estimates, as a handful of its 2024 sales have yet to close.
Overall, Christie’s netted $5.7bn this year across live, online and private sales of art and luxury goods, a decrease of “just” 6% from the $6.1bn made in 2023, said its chief executive Guillaume Cerutti in an online press conference Tuesday. Last year took a higher total, but also represented a steeper drop of 26% from 2022’s total result of $8.4bn, a record for Christie’s.
This was a “year of two halves”, Cerutti said. While geopolitical instability, from wars to the US presidential election, continued to provide a “challenging environment for the art market”, a “strong autumn sales season” helped “turn things around”: Christie’s made $3.6bn, or 63% of its sales, in the second half, compared to the $2.1bn it took in during the first half of 2024.
This included the year’s most expensive lot at auction, René Magritte’s Les empires des lumières (1954) from the collection of Mica Ertegun, which was sold in New York this November for $121m (with fees)—setting a new record for the beloved Surrealist. Underscoring how difficult it has been to procure trophy consignments this year, that painting was the only nine-figure lot to come to auction this year; six works sold at auction for $100m or more in 2022.
Private sales thrive amid uncertainty
Another trend revealed in Christie’s results is the sustained growth of private sales, as public auctions continue to struggle. As Cerutti put it, “uncertainty triggers the need of reassurance from our clients”. While sales at auction fell 16% from last year, those conducted away from the public eye amassed $1.5bn for the house—a 41% increase year-on-year. This is Christie’s second-highest private sales total ever after the $1.7bn it achieved in 2021. Cerutti added that this year saw several “extremely important private sales”, but beyond this $1.5bn total figure, declined to comment further.
Placing 2024’s results, and the shifting dynamic of auctions and private sales, in a wider context, Christie’s total figures this year roughly match those of 2019, when it took in $5.8bn, but private sales now account for almost double the $817m made from such deals in 2019.
Christie’s does not publish category breakdowns for private sales, meaning that it is not possible to ascertain how much of the overall total for 2024 was made by art as opposed to luxury goods. However, the house has provided category breakdowns for auction sales, which contain some surprising results. Despite headlines being dominated by the growth in sales of luxury goods at auction houses, the luxury category at Christie’s actually saw the sharpest decline at auction in 2024, dropping 31% year-on-year. This is likely due to a reduction in overall spending by clients in Asia, who typically lead this category.
The Old Masters category, whose performance is defined far more by its increasingly limited supply than by demand, saw a sharp 29% decrease year-on-year. Meanwhile, 20th- and 21st-century art, still by far the most valuable category at auction, dropped 15%.
Regional split
Christie’s, like other major auction houses, expanded its presence across the globe this year—most notably in Hong Kong, where it opened new headquarters in the Henderson Building. Total auction sales for Asia Pacific were down by 8% year-on-year and the region’s total share of Christie’s global auction sales fell slightly, from 28% to 26%.
In Paris this year, auction sales totalled €384m, an increase of 24% year-on-year. This was led by the €73m Barbier Mueller collection, which set a world record for the single owner sale of African and Oceanic art.
Christie’s main competitor Sotheby’s will not release its 2024 results until next month, according to a Sotheby’s spokesperson. It is understood that Sotheby’s total for 2024 will be less than Christie’s.
Christie’s executive team were asked during the press conference whether they had noticed an uptick in consignments this year due to Sotheby’s having changed its fee structure. Cerutti said that while Christie’s won’t comment on the strategies of its competitors, “auction figures are public, and our H2 results were better”.
Finally, the auction house addressed what might have been its biggest story of the year: the May cyberattack in which hackers temporarily took down its website and reportedly harvested data from more than 500,000 current and former bidders. The house confirmed that it reached a settlement agreement to a class action lawsuit filed in June by at least one client, although it was unwilling to comment as to whether there is any further ongoing litigation related to the hack.
