Colin Gleadell has done a little math from Sotheby’s auction results and tallied his own version of sales figures for the first half of 2010. The striking performance came from Hong Kong where sales are now above the pre-crash levels:

• Total sales in the first half of 2009 [in Hong Kong] were $96.7 million, and rose in 2010 to $270 million – an increase of 180 per cent. The total is more even than the $239 million recorded for Asia before the recession in the first half of 2008.

• North American sales, which experienced the biggest fall of all the regions of 72 per cent between 2008 and 2009, were the second most improved, rebounding by 121 per cent this year, while UK sales recovered by 108 per cent to $949.5 million.

• Sotheby’s auction sales figures up to the end of July show a worldwide recovery of just over 100 per cent from $1.1 billion in 2008 to $2.3 billion, but still far short of the $3.4 billion realised during the same period in 2008.

Art Market News (Telegraph)