CHRISTIE’S 2007 GLOBAL ART SALES TOTAL £3.1 BILLION/$6.3 BILLION Christie’s International, the world’s leading art business, today announced 2007 art sales totals of £3.1 billion/$6.3 billion, a 25% increase in £ and 36% increase in $ over 2006 sales.
in New York had a grand total of £463.9/$937 million. Fifty-seven new world auction records were set during the November sales for masters including Matisse, Signac, Pissarro, Giacometti, Miro, and Gris in Impressionist and Modern Art and Freud, Ruscha, Prince, Thiebaud and Richter in Post-War and Contemporary Art. Andy Warhol’s Green Car Crash, which realized £36 million/$71.7 million, was the year’s highest priced work sold at Christie’s. In June in London, Christie’s Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art realised £121,127,200/$239,952,983, a record total for any auction ever held in Europe.
Some other highlights across various departments throughout the year included the Fisher-Fox family Chippendale carved mahogany tea table that established a $6.7 million world record for Philadelphia Furniture; Frederic Remington’s $4.41 million The Signal (If Skulls Could Speak); Raffaello Sanzio’s, called Raphael, Portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino (1492-1519) which sold for £18,500,000/$37,277,500 and set a world record price for the artist at auction; the two-day sale of the Collection of King George I of the Hellenes which realized £9,358,964/$18,483,954, six times the pre-sale estimate; a world auction record for George Hendrik Breitner’s Gezicht op Keizersgracht hoek Reguliersgracht: an elegant lady strolling along a canal in Amsterdam ($1.07 million/€760,250); Marc Newson’s Lockheed Lounge LC-1 (£748,500/$1,515,713) in London’s Double Vision sale; a world auction record for natural pearl jewellery with the Baroda Pearls (£3,548,000/$7,096,000); a world auction record for a diamond tiara with a Fabergé tiara (£1,050,400/$2,071,388); Jean Prouve’s Maison Tropicale prototype which achieved £2,496,482/$4,968,000; and the Frank S. Streeter Library of rare books and manuscripts.
2007 Select Departmental and Geographic Highlights
For the year, auction division totals with premium were £2.9 billion/$5.8 billion, up 21% over 2006 in £ and 31% in $. Private sales for 2007, including dealer sales of wholly-owned subsidiary Haunch of Venison, were £268 million/$542 million, up 95% over 2006 in £ and 111% in $. Select departmental and geographic highlights for the auction division include:
International Sale Centres – Auction Sales for 2007 Full Year
Europe increased 28% to £1,315 million $2,656 million
King Street increased 40% to £927 million $1,873 million
South Kensington increased 0% to £80 million $162 million
Paris decreased 6% to £125 million $253 million
Switzerland increased 18% to £92.5 million $187 million
Amsterdam increased 18% to £50 million $101 million
United States increased 15% to £1,323 million $2,672 million
Rockefeller increased 15% to £1,307 million $2,640 million
Hong Kong increased 23% to £234 million $473 million
Select International Departments – Auction Sales for 2007 Full Year
Post-War & Contemporary Art increased 75% to £772 million $1,560 million
Impressionist and Modern Art increased 8% to £714 million $1,442 million
Asian Art increased 38% to £324 million $654 million
Jewellery, Jadeite & Watches increased 8% to £238 million $480 million
Old Masters Pictures decreased 3% to £151 million $304 million
European Furniture decreased 5% to £121 million $245 million
American Pictures increased 52% to £73 million $147 million
Russian Works of Art increased 88% to £71 million $144 million
