Parisian Auction Houses

The Antique Trade Gazette has an interesting review of the past year of auction houses in Paris.  The news is the big three, Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Artcurial gained market share at the expense of many of the Drouot houses.  Chrisite's and Sotheby's sales were about the same at 176.5 million Euros and 175 million Euros.  Sotheby's had its best year ever with an increase of 78% over 2009.  Christie's was down 230% as 2009 represented the year for the amazing YSL sale. Factor out the YSL and Christie's sales rose 56%. Artcurial saw sales of 102.8 million Euros and an increase in sales of 28%.

The ATG reports

Sales at Drouot climbed just 6.5% to €440m (£379m), with nine prices over €1m (compared to 31 at the city's three major firms combined). Drouot's relatively sluggish growth confirmed both a trend now apparent for several years, and the impact of the Cols Rouges crisis that saw the firm's longstanding in-house porter association disbanded after charges of trafficking stolen estate consignments.

Drouot's figure would have been worse but for a spectacular upturn of its leading individual firm, Piasa, after their first full year in the ownership of a private consortium. Boosted by Drouot's highest price of the year, €5.55m for a Yongzheng Imperial vase, Piasa's sales of €45m (£38.8m) were up 38% on 2009, distancing longstanding rivals Tajan, whose Paris sales of €31m (£26.6m) were complemented by €8.2m from sales in Monaco.

Small-scale Drouot stalwarts Beaussant-Lefèvre continued to register an astonishingly low volume buy-in rate (just 9%), but their sales total of €20.5m (£17.7m) was up just 4% on 2009. Their average price per lot sold, €1900, was 20 times lower than Sotheby's (€40,000).

Sales at Pierre Bergé & Associés were down slightly at €46m (£39.7m), split between Drouot (€25m) and Belgium, where the firm remain market leaders (€21m). PBA also claimed to be continental leaders for sales of Design (€8.9m) and Antiquities (€4.7m).

Aguttes saw total sales from their three venues (Drouot, suburban Neuilly, and Lyon) climb 14% to €33.5m (£28.9m). The nationwide grouping Ivoire, comprising 14 firms across the country, also saw combined sales rise by 14%, to €91.6m (£79m).

Meanwhile Drouot newcomers Europ Enchères, in their first full year, totalled €12.5m (£10.8m), bolstered by the highest furniture price obtained by a French firm: €1.49m for a pair of Louis XVI cabinets by Etienne Levasseur. Sign of Drouot's troubled times? The cabinets were sold not in Paris, but in Geneva.

To read the complete ATG article, click HERE.