Sotheby's

Sotheby’s have been holding auctions since 1744.  Founded in London, where they moved into salerooms on Bond Street in 1917, Sotheby’s expanded to New York in 1955 and now have salerooms and offices around the world.

Sotheby’s offer specialist sales in over 70 different categories though four major salerooms, six smaller ones and through their online bidding platform BIDnow.


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Leighton’s study for Flaming June takes £135,000 at Sotheby’s

17 July 2015

A study for one of Frederic, Lord Leighton’s (1830-1896) greatest paintings sold to an American private collector for £135,000 at Sotheby’s sale of Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist Art.

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Cranach the Elder leads Sotheby’s Old Master sale at £8.2m

08 July 2015

Sotheby’s evening sale of Old Master and British paintings was led by Lucas Cranach the Elder’s La Bocca della Verità (The Mouth of Truth) which made a major auction record when it was knocked down at £8.2m.

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Contemporary art week: some bumps on the record road

06 July 2015

The latest series of Contemporary art auctions in London posted a bumper total despite the failure of some big-ticket lots.

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Restituted works headline Impressionist and Modern art auction series

29 June 2015

A group of restituted paintings were among the highlights of a robust series of Impressionist and Modern art auctions in London.

Six major pieces of Impressionist and Modern art sold at auction following restitution settlements

29 June 2015

Sotheby’s and Christie’s have well-established specialist departments for brokering deals on sale of Nazi-looted works returned to rightful heirs. Over the last decade some major pieces of Impressionist and Modern art have come to auction as a result of restitution settlements.

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Klimt portrait tops Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern art sale at £22m

24 June 2015

A couple of recently restituted works of art drew prolonged bidding at Sotheby’s evening sale of Impressionist and Modern art in London including Gustav Klimt's (1862-1918) portrait of Gertrud Loew which was the top lot of the night at £22m.

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Orpen at the helm of Sotheby’s first dedicated Irish Art sale since 2011

23 June 2015

A Sir William Orpen nude is set to be the star lot at the relaunched Sotheby’s Irish Art sale in London on October 21.

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New high for Olympic torch as Budd sets £420,000 house record

09 June 2015

Sports specialist Graham Budd struck gold in his latest sale by setting an Olympic torch auction record.

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Liebermann restituted from Gurlitt cache comes to auction

04 June 2015

Max Liebermann’s ‘Zwei Reiter am Strand nach links’ (Two Riders on a Beach) has become the first painting to be sold from Cornelius Gurlitt’s hoard of art.

Bernheimer sale signals new direction for Munich dealership

28 May 2015

Sotheby’s will hold a sale of the Bernheimer family collection in November and Konrad Bernheimer has announced the family’s Munich art dealership will move from its traditional Old Master specialism to concentrate on Modern and Contemporary art under the direction of his daughters.

Tad Smith gives clues on Sotheby’s future

26 May 2015

Sotheby’s latest set of results give the first indication of how Tad Smith will direct the company.

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New record for Danish art at auction

22 May 2015

This interior scene by Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) set an artist’s record when it was knocked down at £1.7m at Sotheby’s in London.

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Pointing to a new pricing territory at flagship auction fortnight in New York

18 May 2015

The latest Modern and Contemporary art auctions in New York took the market to new heights with $2.73bn (£1.84bn) changing hands over two weeks of flagship sales.

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Dealers Eskenazi secure Tang ewer at Sotheby’s

18 May 2015

This exceptionally rare Sancai ‘phoenix-head’ ewer from the early Tang dynasty was among the highlights of the week-long Asian art series of sales held in London.

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Rothko heads Sotheby’s contemporary art sale in New York

13 May 2015

Mark Rothko’s 'Untitled (Yellow and Blue)' led Sotheby’s sale of Contemporary art in New York last night.

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Sweet scent for best of 18th century France

02 May 2015

Briefly owned by Louis XVI, who intended them for the Louvre, this 13in (33.5cm) high pair of fine gilt-bronze-mounted kakiemon porcelain and Egyptian porphyry brûle parfums sold for £1.65m at Sotheby’s in London this week.

Sotheby’s former owner Alfred Taubman dies aged 91

20 April 2015

Former owner of Sotheby’s A. Alfred Taubman – and central figure in the auction price-fixing scandal – has died aged 91.

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Sotheby’s to auction Castle Howard contents

13 April 2015

A stellar consignment of paintings and antiques from Castle Howard will be offered at Sotheby’s this summer.

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Your starter for £2.2m…

07 April 2015

Over 700 lots from West Horsley Place in Surrey, the home of the late Mary Innes-Ker, Duchess of Roxburghe, are going under the hammer at Sotheby’s in May.

Sotheby’s start their new eBay experiment

26 March 2015

Sotheby’s have begun live streaming their sales on eBay’s new auctions platform.

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