Christie's

Christie's is a world-famous 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.

Locations

Christie's main London saleroom 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 collectibles such as cameras, teddy bears, scientific instruments, toys and dolls and 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, Japan, 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 both Christie's and Sotheby's subsequently admitted their participation in 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.^[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.

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.^[3] In December 2006 the black dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in the film Breakfast at Tiffanys was sold for £467,200 at Christie's South Kensington.

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 Christie's Education, 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.^[4]

References

Wikipedia information about Christie's This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Christie's". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.