Christie’s

Along with Sotheby’s, Christie’s sets the pace for the art market, gauging the market’s health through public auctions that set the valuations on art. These are especially pertinent with respect to modern and contemporary work, whose sales volumes are perhaps the most closely followed by art world movers and shakers. Like Sotheby’s, Christie’s also deals in real estate and a wide range of luxury goods and collectibles. Also like Sotheby’s, Christie’s has been increasingly involved with brokering private transactions, as it did in 2007 with a $68 million deal for Thomas Eakins’s The Gross Clinic (1875).

Christie’s was founded in London in 1766 by Scottish auctioneer James Christie (1730–1803), a friend of the artists Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. His first sale took place on December 5 of that year in a former print house in Pall Mall that also hosted exhibitions of the Royal Academy of Arts. His son took over the business after his death.

Between 1973 and 1999, Christie’s was listed on the London Stock Exchange; it was taken private again when it was fully acquired by François Pinault’s holding company, Groupe Artémis S.A., in 1998. Besides London, Christie’s has salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Amsterdam, Geneva, Shanghai, and Dubai.

Among the more notable transactions in Christie’s history was the controversial 2017 sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s 1499–1510 portrait of Christ, Salvator Mundi. Though its attribution has been challenged by experts, its purchase for $450.3 million by Prince Badr bin Abdullah Al Saud of Saudia Arabia remains the most ever paid for a painting.