Best Auction Houses & Dealers in Austria

Austria's Auction Market

Vienna has been an auction centre for more than three centuries. Emperor Joseph I founded the Dorotheum in 1707, and it is now one of the oldest auction houses in the world and the largest in German-speaking Europe. Its main saleroom, the Palais Dorotheum, opened in 1901. Most of Austria's leading salerooms are also in Vienna. im Kinsky has sold from Palais Kinsky on the Freyung since 1993, and H.D. Rauch has held coin auctions on the Graben since 1969.

Austrian art from around 1900 is the strongest part of the market. Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann were among the artists who founded the Vienna Secession in 1897. Hoffmann and Moser went on to found the Wiener Werkstätte in 1903, which made furniture, silver, ceramics, jewellery and graphic art. im Kinsky says it has set many record prices for Austrian modern art and Wiener Werkstätte objects. Its top result is Egon Schiele's Prozession, sold in 2010 for €4.24 million including fees. Earlier periods sell well too, including paintings and furniture from the Biedermeier era of 1815 to 1848, when Vienna produced its own furniture designs. Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller's paintings appear among im Kinsky's top results. Post-war and contemporary Austrian art has its own specialist, Ressler Kunst Auktionen, founded in 2014.

Collectibles have strong specialist houses as well. H.D. Rauch sells coins of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburgs, and it has held more than 120 coin auctions. Leitz Photographica Auction, Leica's auction house in Vienna, sold Oskar Barnack's Leica 0-series no. 105 in 2022 for €14.4 million including premium. Leica calls it a world record for any camera.

Online bidding is standard. im Kinsky, Ressler, H.D. Rauch and Leitz all take live bids through their own websites, and some also sell through platforms such as The Saleroom, Invaluable or LiveAuctioneers, which can add fees. Buyer's premiums run from about 20% to 30% of the hammer price, and they often include VAT under the margin scheme. H.D. Rauch charges 22% including VAT on margin-scheme coins, Leitz 24%, Ressler 28%, and im Kinsky 30% on hammer prices up to €500,000. Seller's commissions differ too. Ressler publishes 10% to 20%, H.D. Rauch charges 20%, and im Kinsky sets its rate by agreement.