Christie's

Sotheby's arch-rival has its website here, rich in highly informative detail but less than easy to explore.


The four-column homepage is not immediately easy to navigate. What look like links, in brown highlighted text, prove not to lead anywhere, whereas clicking on the pictures or the un-highlighted grey text produces results. Similarly, the bottom-of-page tabs do not in themselves lead to other pages. You only reach other areas of the website if you click on one of the drop-down options below the tabs, and very accurate mouse-work is needed not to slip into the list below an adjacent tab. Moreover, while fair-sized areas of white space are normally to be welcomed as a feature of website design, they are here so large as to make the text on many pages smaller (on a standard 14-inch monitor) than makes for comfortable reading.


SPECIAL FEATURES


The bottom-of-page tabs include About Christie's, offering Careers, Christie's History, How to Buy, How to Sell and Locations. Sale Information gives calendars of forthcoming auctions, results of past auctions, consignments (dates by which entries for forthcoming sales must be notified), press releases, Christie's Review and Webcasts (in January 2001 this page said 'No webcasts are scheduled until the New Year'). Sale Categories, ranging from Antiquities and Asian Art to Photographs & Prints, Wine & Cigars, is self explanatory; as is Services, under which are listed such topics as Estates & Appraisals, Books & Publications, Secure Storage and Christie's Education.


Services offers a Site Map, which duplicates the subject headings in the drop-down tabs. In fact, of course, there is a vast amount more information than the tabs indicate. As an example, exploration of the Department headed Furniture and Decorative Arts offers a long list of sub-headings, among them European Furniture and Decorative Objects. Further exploration reveals a link to Auction Records, a most interesting feature illustrating items that have fetched record prices, including several individual pieces of furniture that sold for over two million dollars, though from dates as far back as 1991 and 1993 when prices (before the crash of the Asian economies) were extremely high. As an indication of the movements in prices in recent years, such a feature could be most useful. A more detailed site-map, more like the index in an old-fashioned book, would help. Otherwise your chances of finding such a feature are down to either extremely assiduous trawling or mere serendipity. You will find a more general overview of saleroom records, incidentally, under About Christie's, if you select History and then Exceptional Prices.


Sale prices given in dollars reveal a distinct American slant to this website, further confirmed by such spellings throughout the website as 'collectibles', 'colorful', 'fueled' and 'jewelry.' In a field where the historic 'Englishness' of Christie's might be assumed to be part of its cachet, this seems a little surprising. The strength of the American connection is also illustrated by the fact that the vast majority of Christie's Great Estates (see under Services) are examples of 'real estate' in North America. On the plus side, all the many pictures that appear throughout the website load with exemplary speed and clarity.


One part of the website that might become extremely useful is found under Services, headed Christie's Images. Here, a fully searchable database of images was advertised for Summer 2000. It is not, in fact, available yet. Well down the page is the opportunity to register online to be notified when it does eventually go live. Current information from this service, however, indicates that only some of the images will be viewable online by 'visitors' to the website. If you wish to see other images from the directory you will have to employ a Christie's Images researcher.