1. The Global Market

Following two years of growth, sales in the art market slowed in 2023, falling by 4% year-on-year to an estimated $65 billion. Against a backdrop of high interest rates, inflation, and political instability, sales were thinner at the top end of the market, and the performance of some of the major art markets diverged. Although they were down year-on-year, values remained above the pre-pandemic 2019 level of $64.4 billion.

Despite the fall in value, the volume of transactions grew in 2023, increasing to 39.4 million (up by 4% on 2022), with the uplift driven by the relative buoyancy of transactions at lower price levels for both dealers and auction houses, and the pullback being mainly at the high end, where volumes tended to be lower.

Both public auction and dealer sales decreased in 2023, although the decline in auctions was more severe, falling by 7% versus a 3% drop in dealer sales, and saved from a deeper contraction through the injection of postponed 2022 sales in China early in the year. Private sales at auction houses went against the declining trend, increasing by 2% year-on-year.

The US maintained its position as the leading market worldwide, accounting for 42% of sales by value, down by 3% year-on-year. China, including Mainland China and Hong Kong, became the second-largest global art market, with its share rising to 19%, while the UK fell back to third place with a share of 17%. France remained in a stable fourth position at 7%.

After a robust recovery to reach a record high of $30.2 billion in 2022, the US market declined by 10% to $27.2 billion in 2023. The US remained the key center worldwide for sales of the highest-priced works of art, and while 2022 was a record year for high-end auction sales, the decline in 2023 reflected thinner trading at the top, leaving the market just below its level in 2019.

Sales in China rallied against the declining trend, increasing by 9% to an estimated $12.2 billion. As the economy reopened in January 2023 following strict COVID-related lockdowns in 2022, there was a surge of activity in the art market in the first half of the year, with postponed auction inventories sold to enthusiastic post-lockdown buyers, while Hong Kong’s major fairs and exhibitions returned to their full-scale programs. The second half of the year was considerably slower, with projections of weaker economic growth and a persistent real estate slump weighing on demand and indicating that some of the outperformance in 2023 may have been driven by the unique reopening context.

After showing much resilience to intense economic and political pressures in 2021 and 2022, sales in the UK market fell by 8% to $10.9 billion in 2023. The UK is a key hub globally and within Europe for sales of the highest-priced works, and as these thinned out and imports of art to the UK declined, the market fell to 11% below its pre-pandemic level ($12.2 billion in 2019).

Following a strong recovery, with sales growth of 62% over 2021 and 2022, sales in the French market fell by 7% in 2023 to $4.6 billion, although remaining just above their level in 2019. There was mixed performance in the rest of Europe, and sales in the EU fell by 2% to an estimated $9.0 billion.

Online sales continued to grow despite the downturn in the market, reaching an estimated $11.8 billion in 2023, a rise of 7% from 2022. Although down from a peak in 2021 of $13.3 billion, sales remained almost double the level of 2019 or any year before that, and accounted for 18% of the market’s total turnover.

While there were many examples of transactions at high prices in online-only sales, the tendency for the most expensive works to be predominantly sold offline remained. Data from the fine art auction sector in 2023 showed that, like offline, the vast majority (over 95%) of transactions in online-only auctions were for prices of less than $50,000. However, unlike offline sales which were heavily dominated by value in the $1 million-plus segment, 58% of the value of the online-only fine art auction market in 2023 was sales at prices of less than $50,000 and over 85% was works sold for less than $250,000.

From a peak of $2.9 billion in 2021, sales of art-related NFTs on NFT platforms outside the art market have declined for two years, reaching $1.2 billion in 2023, down by 51% year-on-year but still over 60 times the size of the market in 2020 ($20 million). After outperforming art in 2022 to peak at almost $18 billion, the collectibles segment also saw a large fall in sales in 2023 to $6.3 billion, down by 64% year-on-year, with much of the purely speculative activity which has dominated these platforms losing momentum. Collectibles still made up the dominant share of sales by value, accounting for 84% of these two segments versus 16% for art-related NFTs.