Top Ten 2013 Auction Losts Account for 5% of Yearly Sales

To emphasize how well the top end of the market is performing, Forbes reports that the top ten auction lots sold during 2013 accounted for 5% of the total worldwide auction sales.  Eight of the top ten sales were also in the post war or contemporary art sectors.

Forbes reports

According to artnet, the 10 most expensive lots sold at auction so far this year alone have accounted for 669 million or over 5% of total global auction sales by value in 2013.* With the exception of Norman Rockwell’s Saying Grace and Alberto Giacometti’s bronze Grande tête mince (Grande tête de Diego), these lots were all from the post-war and contemporary category and all of them were sold in New York.

It’s not just the most expensive works, but a handful of super successful auctions, that account for a hefty chunk of the market. Seven of the top 10 lots sold in just two auctions: Christie’s $691 million post-war and contemporary art sale this November and Christie’s $495 million post-war and contemporary sale in May. Those two sales alone have accounted for 9% of the total value of global auction sales.

Yet what accounts for this success in a year when some major contemporary art auctions struggled? Clearly, auction houses put a huge amount of effort into bringing their wealthiest buyers to their New York sales, and this year, they have been incentivizing sellers to consign coveted lots to New York auctions. Still, Katharine Markley, artnet’s lead market and strategy analyst, thinks that the success of New York’s post-war and contemporary sales in recent years compared to the rest of the market has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“The November 2012 auctions did extremely well. We saw a new high for any auction this May, and again this November. Media attention has been lavished on these sales,” she says. “If I were collector seeing this, I might think now is a good time to sell myself. You also start to attract new international buyers.”

Separately, auction sales by value across all categories so far this year are up 14% in the US, according to artnet, but down nearly 10% in China and over 5% in the UK.

* Data to December 4 2013.

Source: Forbes