Christie's
- For other uses of Christie's please see Christie.
Christie's is the world's leading art business and a fine arts auction house. It was founded in London, England on 5 December 1766 by James Christie. Christie's soon established a reputation as a leading auction house, and took advantage of London's new found status as the major centre of the international art trade after the French Revolution.
Christie's was a public company, listed on the London Stock Exchange from 1973 to 1999, after which it was taken into private ownership by Frenchman François Pinault. Christie's has held the greater market share against its longtime rival, Sotheby's, for several years and is currently the world's largest auction house by revenues.
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Locations
Christie's main London is on King Street in St. James's, where it has been based since 1823. It also has a second London saleroom in South Kensington which opened in 1975 and primarily handles the middle market. Christie's South Kensington is one of the worlds busiest auction rooms. Christie's also has offices (not all are salerooms) worldwide including New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Milan, Spain, Japan, China, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Tel Aviv, Dubai, and Mexico City.
Price-fixing scandal
In 2000, allegations surfaced of a price-fixing arrangement between Christie's and Sotheby's, another major auction house. Executives from Christie's subsequently alerted the Department of Justice of their suspicions of commission-fixing collusion. Christie's gained immunity from prosecution in the United States after a longtime employee of Christie's confessed and cooperated with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Numerous members of Sotheby's senior management were fired soon thereafter, and A. Alfred Taubman, the largest shareholder of Sotheby's at the time, took most of the blame and he and Dede Brooks (the COO) were given jail sentences.[1][2]
Notable auctions
More recently, Christie's has auctioned off artwork and personal possessions linked to historical figures such as Pablo Picasso; Rembrandt; Diana, Princess of Wales; Leonardo da Vinci; Vincent van Gogh; Napoleon Bonaparte; Marilyn Monroe; and others. In 1998, Christie's in New York sold the famous Archimedes Palimpsest after the conclusion of a lawsuit in which its ownership was disputed.
On Jan. 31 and Feb.1, 2007 Christie's auction house sold a total of $21 million worth of jewelry and art in Dubai. It was the first time ever an international auction house had held a jewelry sale in the Middle Eastern tourist and retail mecca, and the second sale of art [3].
In October 2006 Christie's auctioned 1,000 lots of official Star Trek contents from the CBS Paramount Television studios. A model of Starship Enterprise-D, used in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek Generations sold for $576,000.[4] In December 2006 the black dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's was sold for £467,200 at Christie's South Kensington.
Christie's continues to dominate the global market for fine arts, having staged the five largest auctions of all time in November 2006, and May and June 2007.
In 1995, Christie's became the first international auction house to exhibit works of art in Beijing, China.
Ventures
Christie's runs educational courses at Master's, Diploma and Degree level through , founded in 1978, based in London, New York and Paris, offering an extensive range of courses in the fine and decorative arts.
Christie's Images is the picture library for the auction house and has an archive of several million fine and decorative art images representing items sold in its sale rooms around the world. With offices in New York and London, images are available for reproduction.
Trivia
- The Christie's New York sign was created by Nancy Meyers during the production of Something's Gotta Give for an exterior shot. The auction house liked the sign so much that they requested the production leave it after shooting finished.[5]
- One of Christie's former employees was Robert Brooks, who now runs Bonhams. In 1987, while at Christie's he sold a Bugatti Royale automobile for a world record price of £5.5 million. Brooks left the company in the nineties to start his own auction house which later merged with Bonhams.
- Nobody knows just how old Christie's really is. While the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766, James Christie rented auction rooms from 1762, and newspaper advertisements of Christie's sales dating from 1759 have been traced.
References
- ^ forbes.com
- ^ forbes.com
- ^ Forbes.com, Dubai Or Not Dubai?, 02.26.07, [1]
- ^ For more information, see the
- 40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki.
- ^ DVD Commentary by Meyers and Diane Keaton
- Christopher Mason, The Art of the Steal, 2004. Putnam. ISBN 0-399-15093-5 (Review from the times of India)