Who were Sotheby and Christie? Sotheby was John Sotheby, the nephew of Samuel Baker. Christie was James Christie.
If you want to sell anything rare or valuable at auction, the best places you could sell it are Sotheby’s or Christie’s. They are the two largest and most famous auction houses in the world. There is not much difference between the two of them, but in 2023, Sotheby’s was number one with sales of $7.9 billion and Christie’s was number two with sales of $6.2 billion. They have switched places so many times over the years they are pretty much the same. There are other old auction houses, but I am interested in these two today. Sotheby’s and Christie’s are in direct competition with each other and are sometimes referred to as a duopoly. A duopoly is when two companies own all, or nearly all, of a market. Mastercard and Visa are good examples of a duopoly. If the two companies are in open competition, then a duopoly isn’t necessarily bad, but it does reduce choice for the consumer and both companies can very easily collude on prices.
What is the difference between Sotheby’s and Christie’s? Not an awful lot. Christie’s has always been a private company, but Sotheby’s has been both public and private. It has been listed on the New York stock exchange a few times, although right now it is owned by Patrick Drahi and is no longer public. Because both companies are privately owned, they don’t have to disclose how the auctions are carried out, just the final result, which leads to a lot of opaqueness. Both houses have their specialisms, but they will both sell pretty much anything if it is likely to garner a profit. They both have similar fees as well. Roughly 20% on items that sell for less than $7.5 million and then between 10 to 15% for items that sell over that price. That means, if you buy a painting for $100 million, your final bill will be $115 million. Although, if you have that much to spend on a painting, you are probably not really worried by the fee.
Sotheby’s biggest sale to date was the Macklowe Collection, which was a collection of artworks owned by a real estate developer called Harry Macklowe. He had to sell them during divorce proceedings with his wife. The collection sold for $922.2 million. That seems like a lot of money, but it is dwarfed by Christie’s biggest sale. They sold the Paul G. Allen Art collection for $1.62 billion. Paul Allen was a co-founder of Microsoft.
So, who were Sotheby and Christie? Sotheby first because they are the oldest. The auction house that became known as Sotheby’s was started in London by a man called Samuel Baker. He was a bookseller, and he held his first book auction on March 11th, 1744, out of his shop. He had managed to get a library of rare books from the library of Sir John Stanley. Baker took on a partner called George Leigh in 1767 and the company became Baker & Leigh. They did very well. They were able to sell Napoleon’s library after he died. They had a lot of connections. Baker died in 1778 and his estate was split between George Leigh and Baker’s nephew, John Sotheby. Sotheby and Leigh went into partnership and the auction house was called Leigh and Sotheby. John Sotheby died in 1807 and George Leigh died in 1815. John Sotheby’s son inherited the business and grew it, but unfortunately drowned in a river in 1861. There were no more Sotheby’s. The senior accountant of the firm, John Wilkinson, took over and the company became Sotheby & Wilkinson. Wilkinson promoted a manager called Edward Grose Hodge, and the auction house became Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge. In 1924, the name was changed to Sotheby and Company, and from then on it was pretty much just Sotheby’s.
Christie is a little less complicated. Christie’s Auction House was founded by James Christie on December 5th, 1766. He was a Scottish auctioneer who had made his way to London, where he set up Christie’s Great Rooms. The auction house lists 1766 as the first auction, but an advert for an auction in 1759 has been found. Like Samuel Baker of Sotheby’s, James Christie had a lot of connections in the world of art and literature, which helped them get big sales. He was friends with Thomas Gainsborough and Thomas Chippendale, to name just two. James Christie died in 1803 and he was succeeded by his son, James Christie the Younger. He managed to make Christie’s into the preeminent auction house in London. He died in 1831 and his son, George Christie took over. The last Christie to own the auction house was James Christie, the great-grandson of the original James Christie. And this is what I learned today.
Image By ajay_suresh – Sotheby’s, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115942790
Sources
https://www.britannica.com/money/Christies
https://www.sothebys.com/en/about/our-history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Sotheby
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Leigh_Sotheby
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sotheby%27s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christie%27s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Christie_(auctioneer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Christie_the_Younger
https://www.christies.com/en/about/overview
https://www.artistcloseup.com/blog/the-top-5-art-auction-houses
https://www.thecollector.com/sothebys-and-christies-a-comparison-of-the-biggest-auction-houses
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/duopoly.asp
https://www.sothebys.com/en/digital-catalogues/the-macklowe-collection-1