Practice · Private capital and collections · Reference
Auction houses publish their charges. Art advisors publish almost nothing.
Ask what an art advisor costs and you will usually hear a percentage. But the agreed fee is rarely all that the advice earns. The money that decides what gets bought comes from the seller’s side of the deal, and nobody quotes it.
Published by ArtisDomus, written by Polina Surina.
Some charges are published, and a buyer can check them. Others stay private, and they matter more to a buyer. They are the reason a contract must cover more than the fee.
What is published
Christie’s and Sotheby’s charge the same buyer’s premium, and both publish it.
Christie’s and Sotheby’s each charge a buyer’s premium of 28 per cent up to $2 million, 22 per cent from $2 million to $8 million, and 15 per cent above that. The rates are the same at both houses. A buyer can check them before bidding.
The seller’s commission is negotiated, and neither house publishes it. Christie’s does publish a 2 per cent performance commission, charged to the seller when a lot sells above the agreed high estimate. So the seller pays extra exactly when the sale goes well. The seller is paid about thirty-five days after the auction, and only if the buyer has paid.
The terms of guarantees are published too. Christie’s says the demand comes from trustees, private clients, foundations and charities who want a certain result. If the lot sells below the guaranteed sum, the house pays the difference. If it sells above, the house takes a share of the excess. The seller buys protection from a low price by giving up part of a high one.
Much of the market now sells this way. Guarantees covered 60.9 per cent of evening sale value in 2024 and 70.5 per cent in the first half of 2025. Most of them sat on lots between $500,000 and $10 million.
What is not published
Three payments that nobody publishes.
The first is what a gallery pays an advisor who brings in a buyer. The second is what happens to a discount the advisor negotiates for a client. The third is the trade discount a gallery gives a designer or decorator buying for a project. Nobody publishes any of the three, in any market where ArtisDomus works.
A charge nobody publishes cannot be compared. A buyer who asks what the advice costs learns the one number that is disclosed. The two numbers that decide what gets bought stay hidden.
The problem is simple. When part of the price goes back to whoever recommended the work, that person earns more for recommending a more expensive work. They earn more again for recommending the work the gallery most wants to sell. Both incentives pull the advice away from the work the collection needs.
This arrangement is legal, common and undisclosed. The remedy is a contract.
Where this practice stands
Only the owner pays the fee.
ArtisDomus takes no commission from galleries and keeps no discount. Any terms negotiated for the owner go to the owner in full and are set out in writing. Better terms buy the owner more work, and the fee stays where it was.
ArtisDomus takes nothing from sellers, so it has nothing to disclose about them. A client can check this in the engagement letter.
What a contract has to say
The contract has to cover more than the fee.
ArtisDomus writes these five clauses into an advisory engagement.
- Only the client pays. The client pays the advisor. The advisor takes no payment of any kind from a seller in connection with the engagement.
- Discounts belong to the client. Any reduction won from a seller passes to the client in full. The client pays exactly what the seller receives.
- Written disclosure for each purchase. The advisor discloses any interest in a work, a seller or an outcome before recommending the work.
- The records belong to the client. Invoices, condition reports, provenance and correspondence belong to the client. The advisor hands them over on request and at the end of the engagement.
- The fee if the deal changes. The contract settles in advance whether the fee moves with the price, and what is owed if a purchase is abandoned.
The first three clauses are the ones that close the conflict. A contract that states only the fee leaves the conflict in place.
Sources
- Christie’s, published buyer’s premium schedule and conditions of sale
- Sotheby’s, published buyer’s premium schedule and conditions of business
- Christie’s, published financial information