Bernard Evans

LONDON (Reuters) - Christie's auctioneers sold 2.1 billion pounds ($3.3 billion) worth of art in 2009, a decrease of 24 percent in sterling terms and a 35 percent drop in dollar terms over 2008, it announced on Thursdy

The results put the company ahead of its main rival Sotheby's, against which Christie's scored a 56 percent global auction share, it added.

Despite the overall decline in auction and private sales, largely due to the financial crisis, Christie's said values for high-end works remained solid.

While the number of lots offered in major auctions last year fell sharply as sellers held out for a return to record prices set during the recent boom, the art market avoided the dramatic collapse that some experts had feared.

Key to underpinning values were private buyers from the Americas, the Middle East and China, while Russians, a major factor behind the pre-crisis rises, spent less in 2009 than the year before.

"The continuing growth and global nature of the art market is ... evident in the number of new buyers in Christie's sales worldwide," said Edward Dolman, CEO of Christie's International.

"In particular, in 2009, the value bought by Chinese buyers worldwide in Christie's sales increased by 94 percent."

He said that buyers from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan accounted for 35 percent of all buying value last year, a rise of one fifth from 2008.

Asian art was also the second largest sector in terms of value after impressionist and modern art, pushing post-war and contemporary works into third place.

Christie's boasted the most expensive lot in 2009, "Head of a Muse" by Raphael, which fetched 29.2 million pounds ($47.9 million) in London in December, a world record price for any work on paper and a record price for the artist at auction.

The strength of the art market will be tested again next month when Christie's and Sotheby's hold important sales in London where tens of millions of pounds' worth of paintings and sculpture will go under the hammer.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)