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After ending a centuries-old auction monopoly, Paris
is poised to become a major art market capital.
Paris has long been a paradise for art lovers,
with its famous museums, top-notch art galleries and tony antique
shops, not to mention sophisticated distractions ranging from opera
and ballet to fine dining. One thing, however, has been sorely missing:
the kind of dynamic, competitive auction scene that elsewhere in the
world stimulates local art markets and draws big-time collectors.
Finally, that is changing. Last year
marked the end of a monopoly established four centuries ago (by a
royal edict of Henri II in 1556, to be precise) restricting auction
sales to French nationals. Christie’s and Sotheby’s—aka the “Big Two”—lost
no time in moving into this long-coveted venue, and Paris now appears
set to rival London as the art market capital of Europe.
It took more than a decade of intense
lobbying by EU officials to pry open the French market to EU and Swiss
auctioneers, but the French Parliament finally passed the new legislation
on July 10, 2000. And not a moment too soon. In the early 1950s, France’s
biggest auctioneer, Etienne Ader, sold twice as much art as Christie’s
and Sotheby’s combined. Forty years later, French auctioneers as a
whole were selling only a fraction of the art passing through their
rivals’ hands.
Auctioneering in France had simply
not evolved with the times. Prior to the recent reform, all auctions
were the exclusive domain of 458 commissaires-priseurs, who
were governed by an array of arcane rules and regulations. Before
raising a gavel, they had to earn degrees in law and art history,
be sworn in by an official representative of the Ministry of Justice
and purchase a business or a share in a business from a retiring or
deceased commissaire-priseur. Yet other regulations stipulated
that they could not engage in any additional commercial activity,
receive outside capital investment or organize sales anywhere in France
besides their hometown. In short, it was a corporatist, protectionist
environment, one increasingly out of step with market realities.
Across the Channel, meanwhile, Sotheby’s
and Christie’s, founded in 1744 and 1766 respectively, were aggressively
adopting modern business tactics. Unlike their French colleagues,
they courted new clients, invested in advertising and hired in-house
specialists for various departments, such as Old Masters, Impressionism
and so on. They also diversified, moving into real estate and setting
up operations in the United States, Switzerland and Italy.
They may not have been allowed to
take their business to France, but that didn’t mean France couldn’t
take its business to them. Aware that the British auction houses could
sell items in whatever market would fetch the most, savvy French sellers
began packing up their art and collectibles for sale abroad. An added
incentive was that Christie’s and Sotheby’s would sometimes guarantee
sellers a certain price or would cut their commission—practices forbidden
by French law.
The result was that by 1998, art auction
sales in France totalled ¤1 billion, compared with ¤4.2 billion in
the U.S. and ¤2.4 billion in the UK. Equally disturbing was the fact
that the following year, Sotheby’s sold more than ¤152 million in
art exported from France; Christie’s is believed to have sold even
more. (Any art object less than 50 years old can be freely exported;
older items over a certain value require an export certificate, but
they are rarely withheld.)
With the new reforms in place, however,
much less French art is expected to leave the country. At the same
time, the international reputations of Sotheby’s and Christie’s will
likely draw more foreign buyers to France. The potential gains for
France are evident—not only for the auction companies but for the
State, in terms of taxes, and for other professionals, such as printers
and shipping companies, who play a vital role in the organization
of any sale.
On November
29, 2001, Sotheby’s became the first foreign firm to wield the gavel
in France, with a sale of books belonging to Belgian collector
Charles Hayoit. The mood was festive as international dealers, celebrities
and media filed into the stately Galerie Charpentier, across from
the Elysée Palace, for the historic event. The firm’s French director,
Laure de Beauvau-Craon, opened the proceedings with a brief speech
after which she was offered the first lot—a lavishly bound edition
of Gabriele d’Annunzio’s Il Fuoco—in recognition of her formidable
lobbying efforts in favor of the auction market reforms. After a round
of enthusiastic applause, the room got down to business, placing bids
totalling ¤3.9 million—handily meeting expectations.
A week later, Christie’s followed
suit with a spectacular sale in its plush new avenue Matignon headquarters.
On the block was the collection of Charles-Otto Zieseniss, a well-known
figure in the Parisian art world. Items included furniture, paintings
and sculpture from the 17th and 18th centuries and the Napoleonic
period—an eclectic stylistic mix typical of “le goût français.”
Under the watchful eye of Christie’s majority shareholder, French
multimillionaire businessman François Pinault, Parisian auctioneers
François de Ricqlès (appointed vice chairman of Christie’s France
this past January) and Cécile Verdier took turns leading the bidding,
which brought in ¤2.7 million. All in all it was a decidedly French
affair, dispelling widespread fears of an “invasion of Anglo-Saxon
working methods” and lending a nice irony to the fact that it took
place 235 years to the day after James Christie held his first auction
in London.
Six months after the excitement of
those inaugural events, both houses remain convinced that Paris will
indeed become a major art market capital. Encouraging signs include
Christie’s March 21 sale of two collections of Old Master drawings,
a specialty in which Paris is particularly strong. One, belonging
to Pierre Decourcelle, sold for ¤1.5 million—50 percent more than
the pre-sale estimate. And among the lots, a drawing by 18th-century
French artist Hubert Robert established a world record, at ¤534,000.
The collection of Pierre de Charmant, meanwhile, raised ¤2.6 million.
Had the art market reform not been in force, both collections would
have been exported for auction outside France.
“Now there’s a buzz in Paris—Europeans
and Americans as well as French collectors want to buy here,” comments
François Curiel, Christie’s European director. “We had initially planned
to hold 22 sales in 2002. But the positive results of our first auctions,
the appointment of François de Ricqlès and Christie’s reputation for
professionalism have made it possible to schedule 35.” Eventually,
Curiel anticipates 40 to 50 annual sales in Paris along with additional
auctions in the provinces.
Sotheby’s, too, is pleased with its
foray into the French art market. “Our initial experiences have been
fascinating,” comments Beauvau-Craon, noting that some of Sotheby’s
sales have drawn a predominantly French audience, while others have
attracted important U.S. dealers from the East and West coasts. “Paris
has more than fulfilled our hopes,” she says. “Sales have reached
our high estimates and sometimes have even surpassed them. We are
delighted.”
Like arch-rival Christie’s, Sotheby’s
will concentrate on areas in which the French market has expertise,
goods to sell and collectors to buy them. Industry experts expect
Paris to become the favored international venue for 18th- to 20th-century
decorative arts, paintings and sculpture, jewelry, books and manuscripts,
Asian art, tribal art, photography, porcelain and automobiles. Both
houses, however, will continue to sell major Impressionist and Modern
paintings in New York, the world center for that particular market,
and important pieces of jewelry in Switzerland, where taxes are lower.
Curiel attributes France’s rich potential
to its many collectors and art market professionals, who form an excellent
complement to Christie’s international networks and marketing skills.
Its development may be hampered, however, by some lingering handicaps.
These include a 5.5 percent VAT on works of art imported from outside
the EU (no equivalent tax exists in the U.S.), the droit de suite
(a .25 to 4 percent royalty tax levied on sales of works by living
artists or artists dead within the last 70 years), and “general administrative
difficulties.” Among the latter is the French regulation, more binding
than in other countries, that a seller must wait a fortnight before
trying to sell an item that failed to find a bidder in a previous
auction, and that the price must be lower than the last bid.
At first
glance, the arrival of the big two doesn’t seem to have made much
of an impact across town at the Hôtel Drouot, where most
of Paris’s 106 auctioneers—who work in no fewer than 70 separate firms—hold
their sales. The renovated building opened in 1980, but salesrooms
have occupied the corner of rue Drouot and rue Rossini in the 9th
arrondissement since 1852. Every day, as many as 6,000 people—private
collectors, dealers, brocanteurs from the huge Saint-Ouen flea
market, plus international buyers from Italy, the UK and the U.S.—flock
to Drouot’s 16 salesrooms, bidding on everything from ¤100 armchairs
to the guéridon table by Thomire and Daguerre, circa 1788-1790, that
recently went for more than ¤3.2 million.
Some 3,000 sales are held here annually,
but in contrast to the sleek efficiency of Christie’s and Sotheby’s,
the atmosphere is relatively informal, with crowds sometimes spilling
into the corridors and elbowing their way into the rooms to place
bids. Adding to the excitement is that amid the jumble of barely sorted
estates and poorly prepared catalogues, buyers have been known to
find bargains and even make significant discoveries.
“Drouot” is also the name of the umbrella
organization in which all Paris auctioneers own shares and pool resources
for such purposes as public relations and advertising. In 2001, their
combined sales totaled a healthy ¤687 million; however, intense competition
from Sotheby’s and Christie’s means that this picturesque world will,
sooner or later, have to change in order to survive. For buyers, this
could mean more efficiently organized sales, catalogues printed farther
in advance, better customer service and bigger selections. What it
will mean for the various auction houses is not yet clear.
Already, some have forged strategic
alliances or have accepted substantial outside capital investment—a
practice that became legal only with the reform. One of these is Francis
Briest, Paris’s leading auctioneer in Modern and contemporary art.
He recently struck up a partnership with an organizer of trade fairs
and an art gallery. A cash infusion from Dassault, the aeronautics
company, made it possible for them to create Artcurial-Briest, a firm
that now organizes trade fairs, auctions and the sale of art objects
at the Hôtel Dassault, a magnificent 19th-century townhouse on the
Champs-Elysées. The additional capital and exposure should be a boon
to all the businesses involved.
Other firms have turned to larger
houses to obtain both deeper pockets and access to foreign markets.
In 2000, for example, France’s largest auction company, Etude Tajan,
became part of the French luxury group LVMH, which also owns the British
auction house Phillips. Dating back to the 1970s, Tajan specializes
in all manner of art, from Islamic to European Renaissance, jewelry
and Modern painting. “Sotheby’s and Christie’s will clearly increase
competition,” comments executive director Jacques Tajan. “But I believe
that we will remain prosperous because we are the best firm. I’ve
built this business over the past 40 years, and I intend to carry
on working as before.” A merger with Phillips is not envisaged, although
cooperation between the two houses will continue, with Phillips selling
some pieces for Tajan outside of France and vice versa.
By far the most radical initiative
to date, however, came from millionaire Pierre Bergé, an avid art
collector and director of Yves Saint Laurent Inc. Earlier this year,
he made a bid to acquire a majority of shares in Drouot—his plan being
to federate Paris’s fiercely individualistic auctioneers into a single
body, with himself at the head. Talks failed, though, leaving Drouot
to be wooed by both the investment arm of the British bank Barclays
and the Dutch bank ABN Amro. “It’s all well and good, these people
putting in unsolicited bids,” commented Drouot chairman, auctioneer
Dominique Ribeyre, this past April. “But the bottom line is simply
that we’re not up for sale!”
A month later, Drouot’s commissaires-priseurs
voted in favor of an eventual buy-out by an outside agent. Lawyers
are now scrambling to sort out such issues as whether the various
firms can be sold individually or only as a unit. Prospective buyers,
meanwhile, are engaged in predictable posturing and feigning hard-to-get.
From the looks of things, the bidding has only just begun....s
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