Christie’s auction house has announced a 16% jump in sales for 2013 compared to 2012, selling £4.5bn of artworks and collectables, the highest annual sales of any auction house in history, The Guardian reports.
The biggest event was the post-war and contemporary art sale in New York in November, which included the selling of the Francis Bacon triptych, Three Studies of Lucian Freud,1969, for $142.2m (£86m).
The increase is attributed to a surge in new buyers (almost one-in-three customers) and increasing global sales, with buyers in China spending 63% more than the previous year. Sales increased by 36% in Asia and the Middle East, 30% in Hong Kong and 31% in the Americas, but slid 12% in Europe.
Online-only sales increased tenfold to £13.2m.
