Murphy, 60, was informed of the management change at a meeting with Pinault in late November, one of the people said. Christie’s and Murphy said Dec. 2 the decision was mutual.

Mr Murphy’s resignation raises questions about whether he paid too high a price for rapid growth in his four years at the helm, squeezing profits by expanding into India and China, while competing intensely for prestigious sales by offering guarantees and side deals to entice family estates and wealthy sellers. The irony of the art auction world is that the record-setting London and New York auctions for which they are best known can produce little, if any, profit.

“It has increasingly become the case that these types of sales — for both houses — are not centres of profitability in any way,” says Michael Plummer, co-founder of the New York-based advisory firm Artvest. “The competitive pressure gets worse every year, as do the amount of guarantees, and consequently the risks for both houses.“

According to auction house executives in Miami for Art Basel, multiple cases in which guarantees on major lots garnered heavy media attention but no profit for Christie's resulted in Murphy being pushed out from his post as CEO.

“You've got two CEOs who've been battling madly for market shares and their margins seem, by many accounts, to have got smaller and smaller," commented an industry insider who spoke to artnet News on the condition of anonymity. “So in one case, a slightly aggressive, disrupted board, and in the other case a company owner, appear to have said ‘enough is enough'."

“We are at a record time for the art market, but it seems these two have battled so hard they might not have turned that into record profits," she added.