Statistical Shenanigans at Christie's: The 2006 Results

Okay Christie's, stop being such a big bully. PLAY NICE!

It wasn't not enough for you that your 2006 total art sales, at $4.67 billion, were "the highest [annual auction-house] results in art market history." You also had to send out a press release today, boasting that the $87.9 million fetched in November by "Adele Bloch-Bauer II" was "the highest price paid for any work of art at auction" last year. Really? It wasn't THAT long ago---only last May, in fact---that Picasso's "Dora Maar au Chat'' achieved last year's highest auction price, $95.2 million, at your competitor, Sotheby's. Remember?

Your $4.67 billion total-sales figure is in itself confusing. Linda Sandler reported today in Bloomberg that "Christie's didn't provide year-earlier figures for comparison, only percentage changes."

But Sandler herself had reported last year for Bloomberg that Christie's "sold $3.2 billion of art and collectibles at 633 sales" in 2005. Why didn't you remind her?

The problem, I surmise, is that the 2005 total she (and you) reported is not comparable to the 2006 total, because this year, unlike last year, you decided to beef up your reported total with more than $256 million in private art sales that your auction house had brokered. Last year, Christie's sold $184 million privately, but this was not included in the 2005 reported total.

Comparing apples to apples, Sotheby's had a 2006 auction total of $3.66 billion, equaling 83% of Christie's auction total (without private sales) of about $4.41 billion. Christie's auction sales (in dollars) increased 38%, compared to a 36% increase at Sotheby's.

The big bonanza for Christie's was the stunning $1.23 billion in Impressionist/Modern sales. Leading the way was the $491.47-million New York sale on Nov. 8, by far the highest grossing art auction in history. New York sales at Christie's totaled $2.11 billion, compared to $1.83 billion at Sotheby's.

What privately held Christie's didn't report was profits, although CEO Edward Dolman declared that "2006 was a phenomenal year for Christie's in terms of...profitability." Publicly traded Sotheby's will announce earnings no later than Mar. 1.

In reporting its 2006 auction highlights, Christie's press release gave undue prominence (right after Klimt's "Adele Bloch-Bauer II" and de Kooning's "XXV") to what CultureGrrl called "an auction record [that's] not an auction record---the the Qing porcelain bowl that Alice Cheng bought at auction in Hong Kong, which had been consigned for sale by her own brother, 80-year-old Hong Kong art dealer Robert Chang.

Doesn't this at least rate an asterisk, with explanation?