Drouot Scraper

This scraper pulls structured, high-quality auction data from Drouot.com, one of Europe’s most active art marketplaces. It captures catalog details, bidding information, artwork metadata, and seller info directly from listing or search URLs—ideal for analysts, collectors, dealers, and art-market intelligence platforms.

     

Created by Bitbash, built to showcase our approach to Scraping and Automation!
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Introduction

The project automates the extraction of detailed auction listings from Drouot, transforming scattered catalog pages into clean, structured JSON.
It solves the difficulty of gathering consistent pricing ranges, lot descriptions, and auction statuses manually and supports anyone studying trends or building valuation tools.

What You Get From It

• Complete artwork and lot metadata
• Pricing ranges, bidding activity, and auction status
• Images and catalog references
• Seller and contact information
• Scalable crawling for long catalog lists

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Features

Feature	Description
Artwork Metadata Extraction	Retrieves lot names, descriptions, categories, edition notes, signatures, provenance, and more.
Auction Data Capture	Extracts estimate ranges, bidding levels, reserve price info, and auction timing.
Image Collection	Saves all artwork images including the main catalog image.
Seller Information	Pulls seller or auction house contact details.
Search-URL Crawling	Works from any listing or search page to fetch multiple lots at once.
Structured JSON	Clean output ready for databases, pricing models, or dashboards.

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What Data This Scraper Extracts

Field Name	Field Description
lot_number	SKU / lot identifier for the artwork.
title	Artwork or object name.
description	Full catalog description including technique, condition, and notes.
category	Classification (e.g., Painting, Sculpture, Photography).
images	Array of all extracted image URLs.
main_image	Primary catalog image.
estimate_low	Lower price estimate.
estimate_high	Higher price estimate.
current_bid	Current highest bid if available.
next_bid	Required next bid amount.
reserve_met	Indicates if the reserve price was met.
auction_type	Online or live auction.
auction_status	Status such as ongoing, closed, or upcoming.
start_time	Auction start timestamp.
end_time	Auction end timestamp.
seller_name	Auction house or seller.
seller_contact	Contact details extracted from the catalog page.

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Example Output

[
  {
    "lot_number": "153",
    "title": "Bernard Buffet — Nature morte au vase",
    "description": "Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1963. Good condition. Provenance noted.",
    "category": "Peinture",
    "images": [
      "https://example.com/img1.jpg",
      "https://example.com/img2.jpg"
    ],
    "main_image": "https://example.com/img1.jpg",
    "estimate_low": 12000,
    "estimate_high": 18000,
    "current_bid": 14500,
    "next_bid": 15000,
    "reserve_met": true,
    "auction_type": "online",
    "auction_status": "in progress",
    "start_time": "2024-05-12T09:00:00Z",
    "end_time": "2024-05-19T18:00:00Z",
    "seller_name": "Maison de Ventes Dupont",
    "seller_contact": "+33 1 44 22 00 00"
  }
]

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Directory Structure Tree

drouot-scraper/
├── src/
│   ├── main.js
│   ├── crawler/
│   │   ├── playwright_engine.js
│   │   ├── pagination.js
│   │   └── extractors.js
│   ├── utils/
│   │   ├── logger.js
│   │   ├── formatting.js
│   │   └── validator.js
│   └── config/
│       └── input_schema.json
├── data/
│   ├── sample_input.json
│   └── sample_output.json
├── Dockerfile
├── package.json
└── README.md

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Use Cases

• Art market analysts track pricing trends, estimate accuracy, and bidding behavior.
• Auction houses compare their catalogs with competitors and monitor artist popularity.
• Dealers and collectors evaluate artworks, provenance, and historical bidding patterns.
• Data platforms enrich valuation tools and price databases with structured auction insights.
• Researchers study trends across categories, artists, or sale cycles.

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FAQs

Can it scrape entire auction catalogs?
Yes—when given a search or category URL, it crawls all available lots.

Does it retrieve high-resolution images?
It extracts all image URLs; quality depends on what Drouot provides.

What if a page has missing pricing info?
Fallback extraction rules keep the JSON structure stable even with incomplete fields.

Can this be used for real-time bidding analysis?
It captures current bids and status but is not meant for automated bidding systems.

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Performance Benchmarks and Results

Primary Metric:
Efficiently crawls dozens of catalog lots per minute while preserving detailed metadata.

Reliability Metric:
Consistently handles mixed content formats and varying catalog layouts.

Efficiency Metric:
Optimized Playwright workflows reduce page-load overhead for large search crawls.

Quality Metric:
High metadata completeness with robust parsing for images, pricing, and auction states.

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