Christie's presentation and review of the legendary auction house

In recent times, all really spectacular art purchases and sales, of which the media reported, have been handled on art auctions.

Anyone who can be encouraged or auctioned out art by these reports and also want to be auctioned out will be interested in the industry, first of all for the most important auction houses, which Christie’s auction house :

The auction house of Christie's - a famous veteran of the industry

Christie's is an art trade business that makes its turnover with private sales and with its now almost legendary auction house for beautiful and rare objects. Christie's is one of the oldest auction houses in the world and currently also the largest auction house in the world: In the first half of 2012, the auction house made sales of several billion US dollars, the largest sum in the history of the company and at the same time the largest sum in the entire art market.

The reason why this auction house, together with its (even older) Counterpart Sotheby’s, is inevitably mentioned when asked about the largest auction houses in the world, is certainly not indispensable to the company's elevator:

Christie's - a company with centuries -old history

Christie's was founded by James Christie, about whom not much more to be learned than that he was born in 1730 in the Scottish Perth and became a good friend of different prominent as a mature man. B. closely with the painters Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds and with the creator of the furniture classic Thomas Chippendale .

The literature on the company's history, which is officially widespread by the company, describes that James Christie performed his first sale in London on December 5, 1766, and from December 1766 also the oldest surviving auction catalog, this date is the official date of foundation.

However, James Christie had probably discovered the desire for the event of auctions a little earlier, other sources guarantee the renting of auction rooms by James Christie in 1762, even newspaper advertisements from 1759 for auction days at Christie's.

In any case, it should prove to be a good idea to exchange the rural Scotland with London's powerful financial center, James Christie was soon able to establish his auction house as one of the leading art trade houses. The current events played his hands into his hands: the French Revolution destroyed everything that had previously helped France to lead the international art trade.

Since the English had already put their monarchs in the place in the English civil war around a century earlier, the English society at the end of the 18th century proved to be rather “revolutionary”, which did not become the new center of international handicrafts.

Towards the end of the creative period of the first Christie, he himself was famous for his knowledge of valuable art (even Katharina the great confidante of his expertise), and the auction rooms had long since become a well -known meeting place for dealers, collectors and prominence of time.

After the founder's death, his son James Christie II took over the business in 1803 and made a name for himself as an expert for Greek and Italian ancient.

In 1823 the company moved to King's Street No. 8, the European headquarters until today. After the death of James Christie II, his sons James Stirling and George Henry took over, who took up the politician and lawyer William Manson and after his death his brother Edward Manson as a partner.

In the course of the sale of the treasures collected in an English country seat, Thomas J. Woods, the administrator's art -loving son, was added as a director in 1859, the company was Christie, Manson & Woods .

In 1940 the reorganization to society with limited liability was due, also to counter the still overpowering competition by the rival Sotheby's, Christie be began to expand beyond the borders of United Kingdom: in 1958 in Rome, 1969 in Tokio offices or sales rooms.

The eternal fight with Sotheby's

In 1973 Christie's was converted into a stock corporation, but remained so much concentrated on the European core business that the first sale in the United States did not take place until 1977, 13 years later than Sotheby's. Although the auction house was slowly but steadily growing, Christie's only had 42 percent of the auction market on his side in 1989.

Now those responsible made some risky efforts to finally push Sotheby's permanently from 1st place: in 1990, the long-term pricing policy was turned upside down when Christie's suddenly guaranteed a minimum price for an art collection in his May auction.

In 1996, Christie's was able to push Sotheby's back into the background for the first time in 1954, unfortunately as a result of this business policy, the profits remained far behind that from Sotheby's: Christie's made a profit from 1993 to 1997 about $ 60 million before taxes, while Sotheby’s generated around $ 265 million.

Christie's pursued other strategies in the 1990s to finally hang Sotheby's, in 1993 was paid $ 10.9 million for the London Galerie Spink & Sons to take the lead in their special areas “Oriental Art” and “British painting” , in 1996 the gallery was added to a gallery for $ 3.3 million to a gallery To put together spink layers. All of this did not pay off, spink layers had to be closed in 2002.

In order to follow Sotheby's in the real estate sector, Christie's bought the company Great Estates in 1995, the then largest independent broker network in North America, which was now renamed Christie's Great Estates Inc. At the end of 1997, all of these efforts probably caused too much costs, and Christie's lay on the auction table, but even after two months of negotiations with an investment company, could not achieve a bid that was high enough to accept it.

Video for Christie's auctions of impressionist works of art and modern art in London from February 6th to 8th - an incredible € 185,057,306 was achieved

That is why the Groupe Artémis SA, a holding company owned by the French billionaire and art collector François Pinault , was able to acquire the first 29.1 percent of the company for around $ 243 million in May 1998, and a deal was subsequently agreed with which the entire company went to Artémis for a total of $ 1.2 billion.

After that, there were no winning reports for a long time, although two auctions were held a year, and only after difficult adjustments around those of the accounting rules was Christie's in 2002 organized the first auction in Paris. A setback was certainly the scandal about price agreements between Christie's and Sotheby's in 2000, as a result of which both auction houses had to pay a penalty of over $ 500 million.

Auction records for Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jackson Pollock , Roy Lichtenstein were broken at Christie's on May 15, 2013 when $ 495 million in contemporary art in New York was auctioned (see video)

Christie's integration into international art trade

Like Sotheby's, Christie's has been increasingly involved in the area of ​​private art since the takeover by Artémis, which deals with a lot of money: in 2006 Christie's Donald Judd Foundation offered a sales guarantee of over 21 million dollars and showed the works of the artist for five weeks in an exhibition that later received an award for the "best installation in an alternative space".

In 2007, the auction house conveyed a 68 million dollar deal with which Thomas Eakins's painting “The Gross Clinic” from 1875 from Jefferson Medical College passed to Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, with the participation of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where this was the most important works of art in 19. Century belonging to the century is now shown alternately. The historic image should actually be sold to Washington/Bentonville, through this business it could be preserved for the residents of Pennsylvania.

, Christie's started an attempt to create a new platform for her private customer business, which should also act as a presentation for the auction business .

This gallery for contemporary art had made a name for itself in the secondary market business , here works by famous artists such as Francis Bacon , Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst . Originally, the auction trade at Christie's was banned from the Haunch employees to avoid possible conflicts of interest and market manipulations, but this rule was soon lifted.

Christie's initially kept the brand name, but Haunch worked again in between as an independent company, the last news dated March 28, 2013 report on merging Haunch of Venison and Christie's London in the field of private customer trade.

The financial crisis also bag Christie's

In December 2008 it was reported in the “Sunday Times” that Pinault was considering selling Christie's again due to his losses, and rumor has a number of private investment companies to be interested in the acquisition of the auction house.

At that time, Christie's has 2,100 employees and many freelancers worldwide, of whom an unnamed number soon falls victim to the downturn of the art market in the financial crisis, later reports reported on the reduction of 300 stammed positions at Christie's.

From May 2009, a second round of job cancellations began when annual sales of almost $ 740 million had fallen to around $ 250 million.

At that time, important business supports such as Guy Bennett Christie were left, and while some collectors were stimulated by the economic crisis to sell their works of art, many were not ready to sell their treasures at bargain prices. The sales rumors have not yet fallen silent, Winter 2010 reports the Financial Times of the interest of a sheikh from Qatar in the acquisition of the auction house, in mid -2012 you can read articles about Katar's entry at Christie's.

In 2012, as in the 1980s, the impressionists replaced contemporary art as a leading category at Christie's, so the sales of this area rose by over 50 percent in the first half of the year and gave the house the recorder result mentioned at the beginning of the article.

It seems to be going up again, and the auctions that have followed since then gave the impression that the international art market and with it Christie's even stronger from the economic and financial crisis. This could be due to the numerous new customers who prefer to put their money into real assets rather than in impenetrable financial papers, in 2012 Christie's recorded almost 20 percent new bidders.

Today Christie's is present almost all over the world

The sales room in the King Street in St. James's, London, which was related to 1823, is still the headquarters of Christie's. In 1975 a second London sales room in South Kensington, which is now one of the most active auction places worldwide, was added.

In 1977 Christie's opened a branch with a huge sales room in Park Avenue in New York , when it became too small, Christie's signed a 30-year contract for a much larger area in the Rockefeller Center in 1997.

In 1996 the company bought a town house on East 59th Street in Manhattan, in which experts are available to show a private gallery in order to show works of art with their clients and to be able to make lucrative contracts in complete seclusion. In 1997 there was a sales room in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, and in 2001 in New York Christie's East, a sales room for small -priced objects in East 67th Street.

In January 2009, Christie's already took 85 offices in 43 countries , but not all sales rooms. The list contains New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, Mexico City, Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin, Rome, Milan, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Singapore, Bangkok, Tel Aviv, Dubai and offices in the art centers from South Korea, Japan, China, Australia and Hong Kong.

Is Christie's the right auction house for you?

So is Christie's the right choice if you plan to separate yourself from a work of art? The history of the house can be easily understood what exactly justifies the reputation of an outstanding auction house: knowledge, knowledge and even more knowledge about art.

In the times when Christie's rely more on business than on knowledge of art during his leadership, profits were also in danger.

As soon as you returned to the old line of the expertise, the success story of the house continued: On May 5, 2010, Christie's Picasso "naked, green leaves and bust" was able to sell at a price of $ 106 million, which is still still fifth -controlled at the moment that was ever sold.

However, Christie's hovers at heights that the auction house for small sales do not necessarily recommend, and the commissions should not be underestimated . At the moment, 2013, they pay 25 percent to the first $ 75,000, 20 percent for the price between $ 75,001 and $ 1.5 million, and 12 percent on everything that goes. With a typical “roaring deer” you will probably not awaken much interest at Christie's.

However, if a previously undetected baby is to be sold, you may be better advised by Christie's than the lady who wanted to sell autumn 2009 in a regional auction house: he was estimated by the regional auctioneer to 900 euros, brought a 7,700 euros at the regional auction- and in the spring of 2010 at Christie's in London for the record amount of the equivalent of 7.2 million euros.

It is a Persian carpet from the 17th century, which the auctioneer of the small house did not recognize, and, according to the following judge, did not have to recognize that they would probably have had better cards here during an assessment by Christie's.

This little story also teaches something that generally applies to every sale via an auction house:

Objectity sometimes protects against punishment, at least the false experts, and the customer is smart if he is advised by several experts in case of doubt.