SG MAG AUG 2019 MAIN_1

The art market’s figures for the first half of 2019 reveal a paradox: sales volumes fell 17.4% while the overall price
index rose 5%. In other words, the prices of artworks rose while the market contracted. However, the lower sales
revenue was not attributable to a fall in the number of transactions, which remained almost perfectly stable; the
contraction in turnover therefore essentially reflected the type and quality of the works offered during the semester.
The first half of 2018 received a major boost from the Rockefeller collection sales, the evening session of which
generated $646 million from just 44 lots sold. By comparison, the most profitable sale during H1 of this year (in
turnover terms) was Christie’s Contemporary & Postwar Art session of 15 May 2019 in New York which generated
$538 million from 58 lots sold.
Throughout the first half of 2019, we have seen a relative dearth of Modern Art masterpieces which normally
make up the heart of the high-end market.
Encouraged by a strong economic situation along with negative or close-to-zero refinancing rates, the demand
for artworks has continued to grow, while the supply has contracted. Some collectors are clearly reluctant to sell
works they believe are bound to increase in value in the coming years; especially as transaction costs remain particularly
high, via both auction sales and galleries.
Works capable of fetching above $100 million are nowadays an essential part of the art market, but, being so rare,
their annual or semi-annual contribution is somewhat fragile. In H1 2018, two works exceeded this threshold: Pablo
Picasso’s Fillette à la corbeille fleurie (1905) and Nu couché (sur le côté gauche) (1917). The first was part of the legendary
Rockefeller Collection, the dispersion of which was dubbed the “Sale of the Century”. The second was sold to a
single bid.
In H1 2019, the only artwork to reach the $100 million threshold was Claude Monet’s Meules (1890)… and that new
record was more-or-less expected given the steady progression of Claude Monet’s prices. Nonetheless, in a long-term
perspective, the value accretion of Meules (1890) is remarkable. The work has posted an average annual yield of +12%
since its was last sold publicly in 1986, at Christie’s in New York, rising from $2.5 million thirty-three years ago to
$110.7 million this year.
The private sale – two days before its scheduled auction in Toulouse – of the Judith and Holofernes attributed to Caravaggio
and estimated between $100 and $150 million, illustrates the fragility of the high-end art market. In statistical
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