Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Auctioneers can take just a few minutes to sell a multimillion-dollar work of art, but those fleeting moments contain plenty of theatrics designed to keep the bids coming in.
The first trick of the trade is what is informally known as “air bidding”, namely making up bids at the start of each lot. This dubious-sounding practice is in fact governed by regulation in the US and UK, and a code of ethics through the big auction houses, to ensure that the value called out never gets to a consignor’s pre-agreed reserve (the price at which they are willing to sell). The procedure, flagged by the auctioneer in the lengthy legalese at the opening of each live auction, can also be used in the event of there being genuine bids that are still below the price at which a work can sell.
“Air bidding is the standard way of warming up the room and building momentum below the reserve price,” says Helena Newman, chairman of Sotheby’s Europe, who began conducting evening auctions for the firm in 2016.
Veteran auctioneer Simon de Pury says it is all part of the ultimate aim “to get one more bid than someone planned to make. If I can get one more from you, one more from your competitor and an extra from a third party, then it can make a big difference to the result.” Starting low is part of a psychological game encapsulated in the age-old auction format. “It encourages people to come in,” de Pury says. “If you see others, it can make you keener.”
Simon de Pury hosts an auction at the amfAR Gala Cannes at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in May 2024 © Kennedy Pollard/Getty Images for amfAR
Once the reserve level has been met, the auctioneer must only build on genuine bids, generally upping the ante about 10 per cent each time, but there are other tools to hand. “A sense of humour is important, to keep things lively and spirited and convey a positive mood to the room,” De Pury says. “Even if a sale isn’t going so well, the auctioneer mustn’t stand there all depressed.” And with each evening auction containing between 40 and 60 lots, “you can’t be monotonous, you have to vary with quiet moments, intense moments, and so on”.
You want your star lot to be in the first third of the sale, so that the momentum can carry through
Simon de Pury, auctioneer
Auctioneer interjections can add a sense of urgency, though Newman says “it’s good to phrase as much as you can in the positive. So ‘would you like another bid?’ is better than ‘it isn’t yours yet’.” Body language also plays a part. “Keeping your hands up, having gestures that draw people in, these can be even more powerful than the numbers you are calling out,” she says.
General appearance plays a key part. Newman notes that, in what has historically been a man’s game, “there is so much more for women to think about. It is a whole production — hair, make-up, clothes, jewellery.” She admits frustration that “things like microphones were designed by men for men” — they clip easily on to a tie or lapel but not to a dress — and says her solution has been the so-called “Madonna mic”, which hooks over the ear.
The extra effort can pay off, however. Newman — the first female auctioneer to have sold two works for more than $100mn, namely Klimt’s “Lady with a Fan” and Modigliani’s “Nu couché (sur le côté gauche)” — wore a yellow dress and gold vintage necklace to match the Klimt’s decorated background, adding helpful glamour to the mise-en-scène of the 2023 auction.
Helena Newman sells Gustav Klimt’s ‘Lady with a Fan’ (1918) for £85.3mn ($108mn) at Sotheby’s London in June 2023 © Haydon Perrior, courtesy Sotheby’s
Advances in modern technology have not done away with the traditional auction format, though they have changed some of its performative aspects. “There used to be more action in the auction room — it’s harder now with online bidding to create the same theatrics,” says Doug Woodham, author of a forthcoming book on Jean-Michel Basquiat and former president of Christie’s Americas. Newman adds that livestreaming means that “people now don’t necessarily watch the whole auction, sometimes just certain lots, so we tend to reset for longer between and introduce each work more elaborately”, with reminders, say, of a painting’s art historical importance, provenance or rarity.
Body language plays a part. Keeping your hands up, having gestures that draw people in, these can be even more powerful than the numbers you are calling out
Helena Newman, auctioneer
Much of the action is orchestrated long before a live sale, and thought goes into the order of works. “You want your star lot to be in the first third of the sale, so that the momentum can carry through,” de Pury says. “And you can’t put mega lots together — people lose focus after a big result.” That applies when a major work flops too.
Just before the auction begins, Newman does voice and breathing exercises, then likes to “get into the room as early as possible, to take in all four corners, feel like you own it. These small things make a difference.” De Pury says he needs to be alone for “a good hour beforehand” and describes himself as “highly superstitious”. He eats an apple before each sale that he conducts — a habit he picked up in 1993 during Sotheby’s nine-day auction of the aristocratic Thurn and Taxis collection, held in a Bavarian castle. “There were bowls of apples everywhere, so I had one each morning and the sales were a great triumph!” he recalls. There doesn’t seem to be any bad omen equivalent to saying “Macbeth” in a theatre, but when an auction has not gone so well, de Pury admits that “I won’t use the same gavel again.”
Such peccadilloes might make auctioneers sound high-maintenance, but they point to the individual nature of an old format that still brings in the bucks. As de Pury puts it, “if you sold the same work through four different auctioneers, you would get four different results.”
Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram, Bluesky and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning