Cross-trades in the summer of 2020. ArtTactic Report
ARTinvestment.RU   06 августа 2020

Analysis of auction sales of a new format with the participation of the old masters

In his latest report, ArtTactic has analyzed two of the evening auction Sotheby's and Christie's, held according to the mixed model, which is well has proved itself, in the early summer of 2020. However, this time part of the directory were added by the older masters, and the trade received from the British Analytics Botanical definition of "cross" (eng. — cross-colleсting).

Auction, referred to in the report:

• "From Rembrandt to Richter" from Sotheby's (28 July 2020);

• "Classical art: from antiquities to the twentieth century" by Christie's (29 July 2020).

the Main results of cross trading:

• lots, pieces: 130;

• sold lots, pieces: 110;

• lots sold (%): 84,6;

• total sales: $187,9 million;

• the average value of lots sold (hammer price): $1.71 million;

• exceeding the average estimate of sales (%): 37,7.

The same, but in more detail:

• the Volume of the combined evening sales of old masters, impressionism, modernism, postwar and contemporary art held two auctions with a total estimate of $157,6–227,5 million, totaled $187.9 million

• the two leading auction houses have used different approaches to tendering and content directories. While Sotheby's June continues to develop its successful format of the global mixed auction, Christie's returned to more traditional offline-формату (and, it seems, has paid off — AI).

• the Sotheby's Catalog "From Rembrandt to Richter" was primarily made up of works of the modernists, which had 57% of the total sales of $165.2 million Second place on the amount of lots sold has taken the art of postwar and contemporary artists (23%), third — of the old masters (19%).

• Christie's much more attention paid to the work with the old masters: the proportion of sales made up 84% of the total trading volume of $22.7 million Sale of the modernists was only 3% of the revenue of the auction house, and the modern artists were not represented at all. The absence of Christie's auction of postwar and contemporary art, according to ArtTactic, indicates the desire of auction houses to focus on the "shock" of the fall season.

• According to ArtTactic, Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips July has managed to catch up in the first half of 2020 revenues: three auction house spent 154 transactions totaling $1.7 billion, accounting for 48.8% of total sales in 2020. Compared with the first 7-ю months of 2019, this figure is 40.8% lower (recall that a month ago the difference with last year was at 49% — AI). This shows that auction houses have significantly reduced the impact of the crisis last month by a combination of offline, online and mixed sales strategies.

• At Sotheby's on the eve of the sellers was removed from the auction six works with a total estimate for the lower bound estimate of $26.8 million. the Most expensive shot of the lot was Francis bacon etude to the portrait of John Edwards estimate $15,6–23,4 million Christie s also withdrew from the sale of three lots, including the triptych "the adoration of the Magi" by an unknown painter from Antwerp with an estimate of $390-650 thousand

• Sotheby's has provided financial guarantees 12-ти lots of 65-ти, that amounted to $69.8 million (according to hammer),or 42.2% of total sales. 98.7% of the "guaranteed" items were funded by third parties (formerly in July, the first mixed auction percentage of lots with a guarantee of a third party amounted to 71,8% — AI). At Christie's there were only two lots with a financial guarantee amounting to $4.1 million (23.5% of sales).

• the results of the sales of Sotheby's and Christie's clearly show which segments of the collectibles in the present time are of the greatest interest: modernism, postwar and contemporary art amounted to a total of 71% of revenues in monetary terms. The share of the old masters had 26.6% of sales and only 2% — on decorative-прикладное art and expensive watches.

table 1. Total sales in mixed auction at Sotheby's and Christie's, July 2020

table 2. Top-10 of sales for mixed auctions Sotheby’s and Christie’s, July 2020

table 3. Top-10 exceeding the estimate for mixed auctions Sotheby’s and Christie’s, July 2020

Review AI: finally-то the term "mixed trading" has been acquitted in full — in contrast to the first test at the turn of June-июля 2020, Sotheby's and Christie's started to clip lots of the old masters. And, though they lost to the modernists in terms of sales, but showed himself very well in the first ten TOP-лотов we see only 3the old masters, but in the TOP-25 they have 8 – the same figure for artists of postwar and contemporary art (it is easy to calculate that the modernists were 9). The old masters also took first place in the ranking of works sold in excess of the estimate – 6 lots in the top ten. In short, those who went to the auction with the desire to buy low-volatile art "on the decline", I noticed the works on market prices of previous years.

At the end of several trades too early to tell, but it seems that Sotheby's took the lead from its global competition: the format of the auction catalog and the final result is a separation from that of Christie's. Recall that before reporting trading the drop in sales at Sotheby's for 6 months of 2020, was 37.6 per cent, against 60% at Christie's. Sale July 28-29 only increase this distance (however, neither one nor the other auction house is no stranger to play the situation by the second half of the year). But Sotheby's visually still looks bolder: from the names of trades (even in the dialogue "From Rembrandt to Richter" eventually won the Joan miró associates), for virtual studios with the complex mechanics of switching between countries. And Christie's, at the time, putting the "Savior of the world" at the evening contemporary art, today, as if afraid to do the reverse step and add live media provenance to the owners of the beautiful obituary.

most Eloquently on the background of the referred sales look results online-ставок: Christie's they worked on 3.1% of the total volume of sales, Sotheby's has made from online-заявку in the end I did not win any. At the same time through the mobile app a former employee of Christie's Loïc guzie of the week was sold to work by Basquiat for $10.8 million Update: via the mobile app, launched just 30 days ago, and notifying the clients about the beginning of trading and the composition of the catalogue a few days before the meeting. Auction house with nearly 300-летней history – frankly, you don't?

Denys Belkevych, AI