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The commissaire-priseur is a licensed auctioneer and appraiser by the government. There are a limited number of positions and therefore it is a difficult position to obtain. The position is purchased. The title that appears before an auctioneer’s name is “Maitre” (with ^ above the “i”). Where some American auctioneers call themselves “colonel” all French auctioneers are called “Maitre”. The modern French auctioneer wears a three-piece suit. Three centuries ago, the commissiares-priseurs wore black robes, wigs and boasted carved ivory gavels and silver pommelled swords.
According to Maitre Maurice Rheims who authored a book titled “The Glorious Obsession” it was no easy task to get elected to the elite club of auctioneers and it required a considerable amount of capital. The exam required only a little law, a little art and a good character. Rheims, who became an auctioneer in 1935, provided this account, “The recruiting system was decidedly odd. The Compagnie des Commissiares-Priseurs comprised seventy members, nine-tenths of whom were lawyers. The job was one into which the head of a legal firm might well like to steer a young colleague with more appetite for the arts than for law, rather like certain regiments into which, at one time, aristocratic fathers would push their unruly sons. Until shortly before World War II, the position was a sinecure for some fifty percent of the members, who lived on the other’s exertions; all receipts were paid into a central pool which was divided equally. So a few competed, and the rest applauded their efforts.”
Rheims’ personal experience at the start of his career was that he had so little money all he could acquire was a “bare title” – a practice without clients. The price for such a title was based on the amount one was entitled to draw from the central fund. The average price in 1935 was 700,000 francs (approximately $46,650 at the time). Maurice’s dad provided 200,000 francs, two friends added to the pot and he had two years to pay the balance to the Compagnie.
“The ambition of a French auctioneer is to start by selling hundreds of moth-eaten sofas and end by persuading the director general of French museums to entrust one with the sale of the contents of the Galerie d’Appollon .” (located in the Louvre). In June of 1935, without one moth-eaten sofa on the horizon, Maitre Maurice Rheims was presented with a handsome ivory gavel by his peers at the conclusion of his statutory oath. He now was challenged to move out into the auction world and find his niche without letting the public know he was coming. (French law prohibits auctioneers from soliciting through advertising.)
Perhaps the best place for an auctioneer to work in all of France is at the Hotel Drouot in Paris. It is where Rheims started and eventually rose to become one of the premier fine art auctioneer/appraiser in France. Perhaps the best description of “The Drouot” can be gleaned from an article by Joshua Levine in Forbes Magazine (12/24/01), “The biggest auction house in the world is a huge dump made of glass and steel occupying a square block between the rue Drouot and the rue Chauchat in the ninth arrondissement of Paris. You don’t notice it until you bump into it, looming over the little alleyways like a big cargo ship in a small fishing village, porters trundling chairs, tables and bric-a-brac in an out of its loading bays, while a fair cross section of Paris society-some 5,000 people a day – streams through its front doors and up and down escalators.
Long before there were garage sales, long before Ebay was a Pez dispenser in Pierre Omidyar’s eye, there was Drouot. Ever since it opened for business at this out-of-the-way location on June 1, 1852 much of the material France has been recycling through its 17 auction rooms, the ivory hammers of the state-licensed auctioneers rising and falling in all 17 of them at once, sometimes, like pistons in an antiquated engine.”
The good, the bad and the ugly have passed through the Drouot over the last 150 years. The petrified corpse of a Patagonian warrior was hammered down for about $8,000 in 1913, a piece of the Eiffel Tower’s staircase found a home in 1990, the hat worn by Napoleon I at Wagram, four hundred cases of butterflies, a collection of African spindles, and the planetarium from the Palace of Discovery. A collection of paintings once collected by lawyer Andre Level was sold in 1914 for a fraction of today’s value. Consider 10 Matisses, works by Dufy, Van Gogh, 12 Picassos, paintings by Gauguin, surrealist Odile Redon and others fetching a total of 100,000 francs – about $356,000 today! The Drouot featured impressionist paintings in the 1870’s before anyone knew to call them impressionists.
The basic facts of the Drouot (sometimes referred to as “Ali Babas’s cavern”) are that every day the doors open for preview at 11AM with auctions starting at 2PM and ended at 6PM (Auctioneers were fined for ending after 6PM). It is operated by 50 auction partnerships owned by 110 auctioneers. There are approximately 2,000 auctions conducted a year with over 2 million items changing hands. The gross sales are approximately $610 million a year. (By comparison Christies’ worldwide sales are 2.3 billion and Sotheby’s 1.9 billion).
Let’s take a moment to study the mechanics of a typical auction session. Again, the auctions at the Drouot are slated to start at 2PM on any given day. More likely, they will start at about 2:20 when the auctioneer mounts the “rostrum” (podium) and starts the auction with the traditional three ritual blows of the ivory gavel. The auctioneer will hammer down approximately 150 lots in the session. As each lot is brought to the block the bailiff will describe the item and the auctioneer will sell it. The bailiff is the “expert” for the commodity being sold. Often times the bailiff is a dealer who might be bidding on his own behalf on lots being offered. The bailiff typically receives a 5% commission for his services; he is also expected to bring consignments into the auction/sale. Each lot is offered with reserve. There is no policy governing the calculation of the reserve. The reserve might be less than half the low estimate or nearly at the level of the high estimate. The auctioneer handles the reserve and will take bids “off the wall” to move the bidding against legitimate bidders until the reserve has been met. The auction moves at a pace of approximately a lot every minute and one quarter with bids being shouted to the auctioneer and his assistants from the crowd of bidders. Once a bidder has been successful a signed blank check is provided to the auction house in exchange for a paddle number. Usually there is a buyer’s premium that is a shade less than 11%. The process has a bit of a chaotic look to the casual spectator but not to the regulars who know exactly what is happening.
One quirk in the French auction system is the fact that the State has the authority to exercise it’s legal right of preemption on the sale of any lot at any auction at any time. Normally, this right of preemption comes into play on great works of art. For example, a representative of the Louvre will attend an auction, once the bidding has been completed; the representative would stand up and announce his intention of taking the item at the highest bid. The Louvre does not have to bid. In fact, they do not bid. They wait until the price has been determined and then they exercise their legal right. Any of the national museums in France can demand precedence over any successful bidder at any public auction.
Another law in France that has been responsible for stifling auction prices makes it illegal to sell certain art treasures outside France or to non-citizens of France. Paris was the place to sell art until about 1950. The largest and greatest art auctions were held in France before shifting to London and New York with the major growth of the International auction houses of Sotheby’s and Christies. The vast controls in France made it hard to compete with the liberal terms and services being offered by major worldwide competitors. It is estimated that France has a five percent share of the world market, down from a post-war high of 90%.
Government controls have made it nearly impossible for real estate auctions to happen in France. According to an article titled “Buying and Selling Land in France” by Shirley Busteed appearing in the Irish Farmers Journal in July of 2002 “Public auctions in France only account for less than one per cent of total land sales and these normally occur when a landowner has gone bankrupt.” An organization called “SAFER” (Socie”te” d’Ame”nagement Foncier et d’Establissement Rural) monitors all land sales in France and has the right to “pre-emption”. The organization has the first right to purchase any land contract negotiated. All contracts must be sent to SAFER for their scrutiny. An interesting statistic is that over 80% of houses in France are leased.
Other French commodities have not sold well at auction do to poor presentation and governmental controls. In an article published by Wine Spectator magazine on January 15, 1999 and written by James Suckling and titled “French Delay Opening of Auction Market” the writer comments on the likelihood that foreign auction firms will be selling wines in France in the near future. The battle is on in many fronts to bring France into the 21st Century of auctioning. “Paris remains the center for wine auctions in France: however, the sales are often poorly organized and difficult for foreigners to understand. Wines for sale are often in bad condition, there are often no descriptions of older wines, and the delivery service for sold lots can be inefficient.” According to one of the biggest buyers of wine at auctions around the world Stephen Browett of Farr Vintners in London, “There are lots of wine auctions in France, but they are very badly run. London is the fine wine auction capital, with New York on its tail, but Paris has never been a serious place for wine auctions. It is amateurish.”
The French auction system has not worked well for antiques and art in the last half century. It has been estimated that 1/3rd of the art and precious objects sold in London and New York auctions are of French provenance. Sotheby’s and Christies are both on French soil now, and have conducted auctions starting in December of 2001 due to changes in French law brought on by the EC treaty. According to an article appearing in Artnet News (6/29/00) titled “French Auction Reform Passes” France’s parliament has unanimously approved a plan privatizing the art auction market and opening it to foreign and online auctioneers. “The French government has agreed to compensate the 468 licensed French auctioneers - who have held a monopoly on art auctions in France since 1556 – for their expected business losses due to changes.” Christies held it’s first auction/sale at their Paris location of 9 Avenue Matignon under the direction of Francois Curiel, President of Christie’s Europe in December of 2001 and claims to have a “full roster of sales planned for next year.”
It seems that the old French auction system that sufficed for about 400 years has not kept up with changes over the last fifty. Now major competition is coming. Not only are “live” auction companies invading France. But, on-line auction and non-auction companies are pushing for strong market share. In an article titled “Who will snag Europe’s Web surfers” by Eric Nee (June 12, 2002) from Fortune Magazine the subject is covered in depth over 9 pages. The bottom line is that America Online, Yahoo, Microsoft, Go and Excite will be bumping heads with European giants like Deutsche Telekom’s T-Online, Telefonica de Espana’s Tera Networks and France Telecom’s Wanadoo for market share.
What will happen to the Drouot? Some say it will continue as before. Some say there will be a transformation, which will benefit the French and their position in the world of auctions. According to an article from Business Week dated October 25, 1999 and titled “Storming the Barricades of French Auctions” “Herve Poulain and Remy Le Fur are moving their business from Drouot into an exhibition center near the Porte Maillot to show clients they’re ready to compete with the giants. In the end, Sotheby’s and Christies may not celebrate alone.”
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