Christie's International PLC

▪ auction house, London, United Kingdom

      art auction firm founded by James Christie (1730–1803) in London in 1766. Christie became the friend of such artists and craftsmen as Thomas Gainsborough (Gainsborough, Thomas), Sir Joshua Reynolds (Reynolds, Sir Joshua), and Thomas Chippendale (Chippendale, Thomas), and his premises became a gathering place for collectors, dealers, and fashionable society. His knowledge of valuable art was reflected in the types of transactions he handled: when chosen in 1778 to handle the sale of Sir Robert Walpole's (Walpole, Robert, 1st earl of Orford) collection, Christie found a buyer in Catherine the Great (Catherine II), the Russian empress.

      James Christie II (1773–1831) assumed management of the auction house after his father's death in 1803, becoming an expert on ancient Greek and Italian vases and sculpture. In 1823 the firm moved to 8 King's Street, St. James's Square (vacated only from 1941 to 1953 because of war damage), where its headquarters remained into the 21st century. After the younger Christie's death, his two sons, James Stirling and George Henry, took William Manson in as a partner and, later, a brother, Edward Manson. When Thomas J. Woods joined in 1859, the firm took the name Christie, Manson & Woods, and in 1940 it was reorganized as a private limited company. In part to answer competition from rival auction house Sotheby's, the firm began expanding beyond the United Kingdom by opening offices or salesrooms in Rome (1958), Geneva (1968), and Tokyo (1969). Christie's became a public company in 1973 and was purchased by French investor François Pinault in 1998. The firm's first Paris auction occurred in 2001, soon after the French government removed its traditional controls over auctioneering in France.

      Christie's has a tradition of handling many historic sales. Major events include auctioning the contents of Sir Joshua Reynold's studio (1794), selling Madame du Barry's (Barry, Jeanne Bécu, comtesse du) jewels (1795), managing the 40-day sale of the 2nd duke of Buckingham and Chandos's Stowe House collection (1848), handling the 17-day Hamilton Palace sale of pictures (1882), selling pictures from Sir George Drummond's collection (1919), and conducting the sale of the Ford Collection of Impressionist paintings (1980). In 1990 the firm set two records—the sale of the Badminton Cabinet for $15.2 million, then the highest price ever paid for a piece of furniture sold at auction, and the sale of Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet for $82.5 million, then the most expensive painting ever sold at auction. (The painting's whereabouts have been unknown since the death of the winning bidder, Japanese businessman Ryoei Saito, in 1996.)

      Christie's publishes Christie's Magazine, containing articles on collecting and news of upcoming sales. Subsidiary businesses include appraisals and valuations; Christie's Images, a photographic archive and image bank; Christie's Education, sponsoring courses in the fine arts and decorative arts; Christie's Fine Art Security Services, providing storage for works of art; and Christie's Great Estates, selling unique real estate.

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