Sotheby’s fired employees this week as demand for high-priced art follows real estate and financial markets south.

Sotheby’s spokeswoman Diana Phillips declined to say how many jobs were eliminated. The company said in a filing that the board’s three-man executive committee approved cuts reducing salaries and other related costs by $7 million in 2009. Sotheby’s will also take a fourth-quarter “restructuring” charge, for severance, of $5 million.

Rival Christie’s is “reviewing our strategic plans in light of the current global economic environment and our sale results for this autumn,” it said in a statement.

Christie’s said it has consolidated the London wine sales group to its King Street salesroom and cut the department’s payroll by three. At the end of October, Christie’s also closed its modern and sporting gun department. The department head left the company.

Sotheby’s shares are down 77 percent this year, falling 62 cents today, or 6.6 percent, to $8.72 in New York Stock Exchange Composite trading. Sotheby’s suffered about $53 million in losses from guarantees at recent auctions that it extended to sellers as prices fell short of presale estimates. It is “developing additional global cost reduction proposals,” the filing said.

The executive committee of the board that approved the job cuts are Chief Executive Officer William Ruprecht; Michael Sovern, a former president of Columbia University; and the Duke of Devonshire.