In 1989, as the art market roared, the critic Peter Schjeldahl wrote deliciously about attending his very first auction, a marquee November sale in New York at Christie’s. He saw “finely tailored feeders at the art trough clutching their bidding paddles,” and mentioned reserves, estimates, hammers, and other specialized terms. Some 35 years later, those annual auctions are running again, filled with high drama, displays of extravagant wealth—and plenty of jargon. Below, a glossary to auction terms from Artnet’s market experts.
Bought-in: When an auction lot fails to reach its minimum selling point, aka the reserve, it fails to sell and is said to have been bought-in. Obviously, that is not good for the person who consigned it! However, post-sale, auction-house employees sometimes work the phones to see if they can line up a buyer at a price beneath the reserve: the bargain hunter’s delight.
Buyer’s premium: When a work sells at auction, the price announced in the room is not actually what the winning bidder pays. A buyer’s premium is added on top and paid by the buyer. It’s calculated on a sliding scale, and the higher the price, the lower the percentage of the fee. For example, Christie’s charges 26 percent on lots hammered up to $1 million, 21 percent on lots from $1 million to $6 million, and 15 percent on lots above $6 million. There were times, not so long ago, when Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips had the same fee structure, but now every house has a different arrangement. (It’s tough being a collector.)
Chandelier bidding: Chandelier bidding is pure theater. It occurs when an auctioneer pretends to receive bids to get the energy going in the room. The term is a joke: The auctioneer is looking at the chandelier to spot bids, rather than actual bidders. Some auctioneers are much better at this than others.
Artist’s resale royalty or droit de suite: In some countries, like France, when an artwork is resold, a percentage of the sale price gets sent to its creator or their estate—not in the United States, though, where proposed resale-royalty legislation has never come close to becoming law. California did have a law on the books, but a 2018 federal appellate court ruling narrowed its application to the point that it almost never applies.
Edition: An edition is one of many examples of a single artwork made by an artist. Photographs, prints, and sculptures are classic examples, but video works are also sometimes editioned. One often encounters editions of three, five, or eight, but the number is up to the artist or their estate (sometimes in consultation with a publisher or dealer), and one can find editions of all sizes. An “open edition” is a work that can be reproduced endlessly.
Estimate: What an auction house says that it expects a work to sell for. While most houses provide two numbers, a low and a high, some give just a single number. When a potential price is very high, auction houses sometimes like to remain a bit opaque, listing the estimate as “on request” while offering something like “in the region of $90 million” to the press.
Guarantee: The guaranteed amount a seller is promised, regardless of whether their lot sells or flops. Guarantees are made by auction houses and/or third parties who are willing to acquire a piece at a given price. Of course, this can come at a cost to consignors, who may have to give up part of any upside beyond that agreed-upon price. Guarantees have become a tool for auction houses to win consignments, especially estates. Because offering guarantees is risky for the houses (there’ve been times when they have lost tens of millions of dollars), they sometimes outsource the risk to other investors.
Hammer price: This is the amount of money that an artwork sells for in the salesroom, before fees, such as the buyer’s premium, are added. The hammer price, in a certain sense, reflects the value of a work before the cost of bringing it to auction. An analogy: A burrito may be $12 on the Grubhub app, but it can cost $24 to get it to your house.
Irrevocable bid: A pre-set bid from a party outside the auction house, a third-party guarantee by another name. It’s a way for the auction house to offset risk and for a client to lock in a sale. If a collector is passionate about a work, they might be able to take it home at or near its low estimate by placing a so-called IB. If bidding goes wild and it sells to someone else, that bidder may be able to share the upside.
Pass: Synonymous with “bought-in.”
Primary market: Sales of artworks for the first time—through galleries that represent them, typically.
Secondary market: Resales of art.
Provenance: The record of ownership of an artwork. An association with a vaunted collector or celebrity can add value to a work. In an ideal situation, a lot listing will mention every single time a work has changed hands, but that is not always the case.
Reserve: The minimum price, which is generally not disclosed, that must be met before a work can be sold.
Sell-through rate (by value vs. by lot): These percentages reflect two different things: how an auction performed versus its estimates (“by value”), and how it performed in terms of percentage of works sold (“by lot”). Benchmarks for success vary based on the type of sale and the state of the market, but a higher percentage is always better.
Underbidder: Usually, this refers to the second-place finisher—the final, losing competitor—when an auction lot is hammered to the winning bidder. However, it can also refer to all those who bid but failed to win. The identity of underbidders is important for dealers and advisors because it can lead to future deals. The day after an auction, a dealer may write to an underbidder, “Hey! I know that you didn’t get that $5 million Picasso painting you wanted last night, but what about this one for $4 million?”
Ultra-contemporary: A work made by an artist born after 1974. If you are a regular reader of these pages, you know that the market for these works is volatile, messy, and not-uninteresting to follow.
Withdrawal: When a lot is removed from a planned auction, it is withdrawn. Generally that happens when the house decides that the work is unlikely to sell. It’s better to hide it away than let it die on the auction block, the logic goes. Other reasons for withdrawal include that a potential sale has been blocked by legal action, or the threat of legal action (concerning its ownership, say), or that its consignor got cold feet (in that case, they may have to pay big fees).
White-glove sale: An auction in which every single lot that’s offered finds a buyer. The sell-through rate, by lot, is thus 100 percent, and the art handlers will not need to get their hands dirty carting works back to storage because they are headed to new homes! In popular culture, white glove treatment refers to meticulous service, often at luxury establishments. There is also a suggestion of perfection, as when a room passes the “white glove test.” An auctioneer who conducts such a sale is often ceremoniously given a pair of white gloves at the end as a token of recognition.