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Art of the sale: Christie’s shuffles lots, adds strings for Hong Kong auctions
Amid fears of art market slowdown, auctioneers to hold first dedicated sale of Buddhist art, and first Asian private sale of rare musical instruments
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News from the art auction market has been gloomy of late, prompting auction houses to look at new ways of presenting lots for sale.
On Monday, Sotheby’s third-quarter results showed it was losing less money than a year ago but revenue from its core auction business was still shrinking. Its share price has dropped 18 per cent since.
Over at arch-rival Christies, news that Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian paid US$170.4 million for Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu Couché failed to dispel fears of a slowdown. The Monday evening sale in New York saw record prices fetched for the Modigliani and works by other artists such as Roy Lichtenstein. But the sell-through rate was a paltry 71 per cent.
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Meanwhile, niche players like South Korean auction houses are still doing well. And there’s still plenty of money out there, judging by Liu’s aggressive bidding for the Modigliani and Joseph Lau Luen-hung’s purchases of some really big diamonds.
I have been surprised to find a huge interest in Himalayan Buddhist art in particular
So it pays to take a long, hard look at market demand and restructure sales accordingly.
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Christie’s will hold its annual Hong Kong autumn sales from November 27 to December 2 and it is trying out some new strategies. There’s the Singaporean art sale pegged to the 50th anniversary of the founding of the island state and the November 24 opening of the National Gallery Singapore.
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