At the beginning of July, the annual report of the French auction council was published, which looks back on 2021 with the data from 427 auction houses: Four billion euros were brought in, with an increase of forty percent.

Compared to 2019, the year before the pandemic, the increase is 21 percent.

The first half of 2022 confirms that the fourth largest auction market in the world continues to thrive.

In addition to growing sales, three top works were sold at prices of 20 million euros and more.

Christie's was able to offer an extraordinary collection: in June, art objects and furniture from the 17th to the 20th century from the residences of the couturier Hubert de Givenchy, who died in 2018, were brought up for auction.

In addition to fashion, his passion was art.

Givenchy furnished his Paris city palace and the country residence in the Manoir du Jonchet with exquisite expertise.

1,229 lots came under the hammer and grossed 118.1 million euros including premium.

Alberto Giacometti's early sculpture "Femme qui marche (I)", created between 1932 and 1936, reached 23.5 million euros as the top lot and at the same time the highest hammer price of the first half of the year in France.

Joan Miró's sky-blue abstraction "Le passage de l'oiseau-migrateur" doubled the lower expectation with 5.75 million euros,

while the large drawing of a "Faune à la lance" by Picasso climbed to 3.5 million euros (estimate 1.5 to 2.5 million euros).

Two monumental bronze garandoles from the Louis XVI era were valued at 4.1 million euros and quadrupled the upper estimate.

Christie's leads in the first half of the year with sales of 300 million euros - strengthened by the Givenchy collection.

For a rediscovered drawing study attributed to none other than Michelangelo, 30 million euros were expected at the old master auction.

In the end, 20 million euros were approved for the nude, based on a fresco by Masaccio - the lack of final certainty about the authorship certainly played a role.

Auguste Rodin's famous "Thinker" has been called up as the top lot in an online auction for the interior of a Parisian apartment on the Quai d'Orsay, put together by decorator Alberto Pinto.

The Rudier cast, which is a good seventy centimeters high, remained at the lower estimate at 9.5 million euros, but it is still the highest price

Sotheby's does not publish half year sales.

For the first time, the house of entrepreneur Patrick Drahi offered an auction dedicated to Surrealism.

Francis Picabia's poetic painting "Pavonia", estimated at 6 to 8 million euros, achieved a record 8.5 million euros and is also the top lot of the semester at Sotheby's.

The works of François-Xavier Lalanne also have a surrealistic tendency.

His "Rhinocrétaire", a desk in a bronze rhinoceros sculpture, was sold at the design auction in May for 4.6 million euros (2/3 million).

As the top lot of the Modern and Impressionist auction, Picasso's painting "Nus masculins (Les trois âges de l'homme)" surpassed the top estimate at 3.4 million euros.

At the scattering of the collection of André Mourgues,

The largest French auction house, Artcurial, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and is reporting record sales of 155 million euros in the first half of the year.

The 102-year-old Pierre Soulages is the most expensive contemporary French painter.

His early work achieves particularly high surcharges.

It is therefore surprising that the "Peinture 92 x 73 cm, 12 août 1959" from the Schwarz-Sterngold collection, at 2.06 million euros, did not surpass the lower estimate (2.3/3.3 million euros).

Artcurial had the most fabulous lot of this semester in its program with a still life by Jean-Siméon Chardin.

"Le panier de fraises des bois" from 1761, estimated at 12 to 15 million euros, was auctioned for 20.5 million euros by an American gallery owner.

Then the French state refused the export and classified it as a national treasure.

The auctioneer Aguttes leads the broad midfield of French auction houses and, at 51.5 million euros, achieved the best result since it was founded in 1974. Long before Chardin, in 1631, the painter Louyse Moillon had a bowl of strawberries next to a basket of cherries painted.

The enchanting still life set a new record at 1.3 million euros – the estimate was 150,000 to 200,000 euros.