A strong rebound after the trough of the wave. Christie’s announced on Friday 2 February, a global sales 2017 to increase sharply, by 26 %, to 5.1 billion pounds (5.8 billion euros). This good result is due much to the price in the stratosphere reached by the Leonardo da Vinci, Salvator Mundi sold, in November, 450.3 million (360 million euros) in New York, the crown prince of saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman. This painting on walnut wood has punctured the ceiling of the works to be the most expensive ever sold. Before the next record. And she has definitely added new colors to Christie s. “But this is not the only one,” says the World Edouard Boccon-Gibod, executive director of Christie’s France : seven of ten bids, the highest reached in 2017 have been under the hammer of one of the sales rooms of the british house including François Pinault is the sole shareholder.
Whether it’s the Red Skull, a painting of Jean-Michel Basquiat sold for 16.5 million pounds in London, the seahorse sculpture Large woman II by Alberto Giacometti that has been sold in Paris for 24.9 million euro, or a letter of Albert Einstein to a friend, sold online to more than 106 000 dollars, sales media did not miss. Mr. Boccon-Gibod also welcomes” an increase in the market share of Christie’s in all categories of works “. Of contemporary art, antique paintings, photography or drawings…
In the competition for the “pretty fierce” who plays with his great rival, the U.s. Sotheby’s, “where no gift is made” to the other, according to M. Boccon-Gibod, ” we are proud to have achieved 1 billion pounds more than them last year.” The first estimates of Sotheby’s, which will publish its accounts at the beginning of march, are state of 4.68 billion recorded during the sales…
