Founded in 1744, Sotheby’s is the oldest and largest internationally recognised firm of fine art auctioneers in the world. It has a global network of 80 offices and the company’s annual worldwide sales turnover is currently in excess of $7 billion.
Sotheby’s founder, Samuel Baker, was an entrepreneur, occasional publisher and successful bookseller who held his first auction under his own name on 11 March 1744. The dispersal of “several Hundred scarce and valuable Books in all branches of Polite Literature” from the library of Sir John Stanley fetched a grand total of £826.
Baker concocted enticing advertising campaigns and produced authoritative catalogues. He was, as one colleague noted, a “joyous fellow” with a fondness for plum-coloured coats.
For more than a century, Baker and his successors were to handle all of the great libraries sold at auction, including those of the Earls of Sunderland, Hopetoun and Pembroke and the Dukes of Devonshire, York and Buckingham. Following Napoleon’s death, Sotheby’s sold the books he had taken into exile to St Helena – the final lot was the Emperor’s tortoiseshell-and-gold walking stick.
In 1767 Baker went into partnership with George Leigh. Leigh was a natural auctioneer with an actor’s sense of timing. His ivory hammer is still on display at Sotheby’s London galleries. On Baker’s death in 1778, his estate was divided between Leigh and Baker’s nephew John Sotheby, whose family remained involved in the business for more than 80 years. During that time the company extended its role to take in the sale of prints, coins, medals and antiquities.
In 1842 John Wilkinson, the firm’s senior accountant, became a partner and when the last of the Sotheby family died in 1861, Wilkinson took over as head of the business. Three years later he promoted Edward Grose Hodge, and restyled the company Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge, the name it carried until 1924.
Country: United Kingdom
Year: 1744
Date: March 11
Source: https://www.sothebys.com/en/about/our-history
History of Auctioneering
Country:
Year:
Date:
Source:
In 2001 Bonhams & Brooks merged with Phillips Son & Neale to form a new UK company trading as Bonhams. Phillips Son & Neale had been based in 101 New Bond Street, which subsequently became the new headquarters of Bonhams. The building consisted of seven different freeholds and had been described as “a Dickensian rabbit warren”. The first of the sites to be acquired was Blenstock House, an Art Deco building at the junction of Blenheim Street and Woodstock Street, eventually acquiring the complete building in 1974.
Country:
Year:
Date:
Source:
In 2002 Bonhams purchased Butterfields, a leading auction house on the West Coast founded in 1865. Bonhams changed Butterfields’ name to Bonhams & Butterfields, and Malcolm Barber, formerly of Brooks, became the chief executive officer of the American subsidiary. Bonhams remained the company’s brand name outside of the United States.
Country:
Year:
Date:
Source:
in March 2022, Bonhams acquired the US auction house Skinner Inc. for an undisclosed sum. The new company is called Bonhams Skinner.
Country:
Year:
Date:
Source:
In March 2022, Bonhams acquired the Danish auction house, Bruun Rasmussen for an undisclosed sum.
Country:
Year:
Date:
Source:
Warlow v Harrison (1859) is an English contract law case that talks about the liability of an auctioneer when he fails to sell the auctioned property to the highest bona fide bidder in an auction without reserve. The defendant, an auctioneer, offered a horse for sale at a public auction with no reserve. The plaintiff attended the auction and placed a bid of 60 guineas. The horse’s owner placed a bid of 61 guineas. The plaintiff declined to make any further bids, and the defendant (who appears to have been unaware that the bidder was the owner) put down the hammer to sell the horse to the owner for 61 guineas. The plaintiff asserted that the horse belonged to him because he was the highest bona fide (true) bidder at an unreserved auction. The plaintiff claimed in his pleadings that the defendant served as his agent to carry out this contract.
Country:
Year:
Date:
Source:
“Est-Ouest” means “East” and “West” in French. Est-Ouest Auctions, the first international and oldest Japan-based international auction house founded in 1984, plays an important role in Auction development by holding many different auctions in both Japan and overseas. We aim at being an auction house that brings our client the arts from both Oriental and Western to have different cultural experience by having 5-6 auctions per annum.
Country:
Year:
Date:
Source:
- Total Eren: 75 MW at €44.88/MWh
- Guris: 74.88 MW at €74/MWh
- Verbund: 72.6 MW at €74.95/MWh
Country:
Year:
Date:
Source:
Heritage Auctions is the largest collectibles auctioneer and third largest auction house in the world, as well as the largest auction house founded in the U.S. We are also the undisputed Internet leader in our field, with more than 1.83 million online bidder-members registered on HA.com from all 195 countries. This loyal and growing community of collectors is a testament to the usefulness of our website, our reputation for professional business practices and our vast expertise in the field of art and collectibles. Established in 1976, Heritage offers a wide range of U.S. & World Coins, Rare Currency, Fine & Decorative Art, American Art, Illustration Art, Modern & Contemporary Art, Urban Art, Comic Books & Comic Art, Movie Posters, Entertainment & Music Memorabilia, Jewelry & Timepieces, Luxury Handbags, Sports Collectibles, Historical & Political Memorabilia, Rare Books & Manuscripts, Ethnographic Art, & Space Exploration Memorabilia, Civil War Memorabilia, Photographs, Nature & Science, Fine and Rare Wine, Luxury Real Estate, Pop Culture Collectibles, and more.
Country:
Year:
Date:
Source:
Marshfield – The Wisconsin Auctioneer’s Association elected as President, O.E. Allison of Kingston; vice-president, Will Ebbe of Marshfield; secretary-treasurer, J.H. Dennhardt of Neenah, the assemblyman who fathered the law now in force prohibiting liquor being sold or given away at auctions. Neenah will be the meeting place next year.
Country:
Year:
Date:
Source: