Artcurial Live Bid Help

How to Bid in a Live & Online Only Auction?

1 Create an Account
You must create an Account on our website. Once registered, you can register in the Live auctions that interest you, to participate in Live.

2 Register to a Live auction
- Go to the Live Auction Schedule.
- Click on “Register to Bid” in the line of sale, which interests you.
- Log in (the username is your email address + password, which you chose when registering on our site).
- You will be prompted to enter your credit card information.
You will receive an email confirming your registration in the sale.

Bid Limit

Please note that the limit per Auction is €5,000 for a Live Auction and €7,500 for an Online Only Auction (Timed Auction).
If you wish to increase this Bid Limit, please go to the My Auctions page, in the "View Options" menu select “Request Bid Limit increase” and indicate the maximum amount desired.
You can also come back to Bids Office bids@artcurial.com by specifying the name of the auction, the paddle n° and the desired Bid Limit amount.
You can also contact Artcurial Bids Office by email bids@artcurial.com with a copy of your ID card or passport, specifying the name and date of the sale and the maximum amount you wish to bid. 
This information can take some time to process, so we recommend that you register 48 hours before the start of the sale. The Bids Office will confirm by email your de-cap.

How do I Bid in a Live Bid Sale?

Live Bid sales are physical sales that are broadcast live on the artcurial.com website.
Thanks to Live Bid technology, users can log in from their computer, tablet or smartphone and see access to the live video of the sale, as if they were in the room.

To bid in a Live Bid Sale you must
- Have an artcurial.com account with steps 1 and 2 completed
- On the day of the sale, log in and click on "Live Bid". This will take you to the Live Bid console, where you will see the room video and the status of the auction.

Live Bid Console
Before the passage of a lot, the information of "bidding" is announced.
Click on the bid amount to bid (the bidding step is determined by the auctioneer).

Absentee bid
This allows you to participate in the sale before the live auction. You can place an absentee bid on a lot in a live auction, up until the moment that lot is opened for live bidding. If you are the highest bidder with your absentee bid, our system will automatically increase your bid until it is higher than the last live bid, up to your maximum bid.

Cancelling Absentee Bids
Go to the "My Bids" section and follow the instructions.
For each sale, a maximum of 3 Absentee Bids can be cancelled.
It is not possible to cancel an Absentee Bid within 2 hours of the start of the sale.

How to Bid in an Online Only Sale (Timed Auction)?

Unlike "classic" auctions, Online Only sales, also called “Timed Auctions”, take place without an auctioneer and are carried out exclusively online. The Live Bid software automatically manages the bids.

To bid in an Online Only Sale you must
- Have an artcurial.com account with steps 1 and 2 completed
- As soon as the sale catalog is online, go to the page of the lot you are interested in, enter the maximum amount you wish to bid and validate by clicking on "Leave Bid".

Absentee Bids
Absentee Bids can be placed as soon as the auction catalogue is online, in case of overbidding, the system will progressively bid in your place, respecting the bidding pace and the maximum amount of your bid/absentee (this amount remains confidential).

Cancelling Absentee Bids
Go to the "My Bids" section and follow the instructions.
For each sale, a maximum of 3 absentee bids can be cancelled.
It is not possible to cancel an absentee bid within 2 hours of the start of the sale.

Simple bidding
The bidding step is automatically calculated according to the bidding price defined by the seller and the previous bids.

Reserve price
Some lots have a minimum price set by the seller and cannot be auctioned until this amount is reached.

Closing of the sale
For each Lot, an auction end time is indicated on the page where the Lot is displayed.
Lots are auctioned at a rate of 1 lot per minute.
If a bid is placed in the last 5 minutes, the sale time of this Lot will be extended by 5 minutes, you will benefit from this interval to bid higher. As a result, the chronology of the end of the sale of the different Lots can be different from the numerical order of the Lots.
In case of overbidding on a Lot for which you have bid, you will be notified by email.

This extension of the Lot sale time has no effect on the end time of the bids for the following Lots. As a result, the chronology of the end of the sale of the different Lots may be different from the numerical order of the Lots.

Question/Answer

Difficulties to login
When a session has been open for too long and/or several windows (tabs) are open simultaneously, you may no longer be able to log in to a sale. Make sure you are logged out by clicking on this link, exit and relaunch your browser and try logging in again.

Please aso try clearing Cookies and other site data folder of your web browser.
Google Chrome users: copy/paste this url into your address bar chrome://settings/clearBrowserData

Update your email / password
To change your email address you must have access to your old email account: Click on this link

Forgot your password?
Click on this link to change your password.

Difficulties

In case of problem to register on artcurial.com website and/or participate in our "Live Auctions”, you can also register and bid from our partner invaluable.com.

Customer Care

Support Invaluable 
Europe: +44 1983 559850
North America: +1 617 746 9800