A legal claim lodged against Christie’s in New York has highlighted some of the practices relating to private sales that top-end auctioneers make behind closed doors, writes Alex Capon.
The case was filed earlier this month by a South Korean gallery that had consigned a Francis Bacon painting for sale via private treaty. One and J art gallery of Seoul claims that Christie’s acted unreasonably by eventually trying to offload the work below its market value.
The court documents include the seller’s agreement from October 2017. It states that Christie’s would attempt to arrange “a private treaty sale of not less than $10m” but would offer the picture at public auction if a buyer had not been found by September 2, 2019.