Sotheby's, legendary sales of the famous Auction House

Founded in 1744, the auction house Sotheby’s has often been outstanding in legendary auctions. Let's take a look back at some of them.

Legendary sales

In 1958, the famous Goldschmidt collection was auctioned by Sotheby’s. In just 21 minutes, seven paintings are sold for 781,000£, a record amount for a sale of paintings at the time.

In 1997, Michael Jordan signed a contract with Nike and released the famous Jordan Brand basketball. The player who marked the history of the Bulls and a whole generation wins 6 finals by wearing the shoes of the brand in his name. Sold individually by Sotheby’s, six of them reached a record total sales amount of 8 million $ which come with photographs of the athlete.

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These last years

In 2021, the New York office established a new record 1 billion $ sale on 7 sales in only one week. It featured works from the famous Macklowe Collection, including artists as Banksy, Frida Kahlo, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mark Bradford, Claude Monet, Jordan Casteel, Yoshitomo Nara, Leonora Carrington, Lee Krasner…

In 2023, the Ambroise Vollard collection was unveiled by Sotheby’s in Paris. This French art dealer and writer has accumulated many works by Gauguin, Renoir and Cézanne… among them, the «Nature morte avec pivoines de Chine et mandoline» painted in 1885 by Gauguin. This only matserpiece was estimated between 15 and 20 million dollars.

In 2023 again, about 1.500 objects that belonged to Freddie Mercury are presented. These personal items were kept in the singer’s London home and their sale reached a new record for such a private collection. Among the belongings of Queen's singer, were the manuscript of Bohemina Rhapsody that fanned to 1.6 million euros, his piano, costumes including the famous crown and the cape of the Magic Tour of 1986. With more than 41.800 offers including 27.100 made by online buyers, the sum of 40 million £ - 46.5 million euros - was raised for the succession as well as for associations, the Mercury Phoenix Trust and Elton John Aids Foundation, which fight against AIDS.

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The sale of the collection of Emily Fisher Landau, an American collector and owner of one of America’s first contemporary art collections, generated more than 400 million $. Among the works was a portrait of Picasso, which alone won 139.4 million $. «La femme à la montre» of 1932 thus reached the second highest price for a painting by the Spanish artist. During this sale, there are 6 other paintings whose price exceeded 100 million euros.

This year, the shorts worn by the famous boxer Mohammed Ali during the legendary fight «Thrilla and Manilla» in 1975 against Joe Frazier are on sale, raising the auction to nearly 3.8 million euros. Sotheby’s had already proposed in 2023 a pair of torn gloves worn during the fight at Wembley in 1963 against Henry Cooper and which was auctioned for almost 500.000$.

But the legend is created not only by the amount but also by artists' performances, especially during the art's self-destruction happening . In the 1950s, the artist Robert Rauschenberg fully erased a drawing by painter Willem de Kooning to go back to the original white canvas, in the White Painting movement that Malevitch and Rodtchenko also worked on.... or the "ready-made", of which Marcel Duchamp was one of the pioneers. Jean Tinguely and Gustav Metzger are also masters in denouncing a «society that deteriorates» in the words of Metzger.

In 2021, during an auction conducted by Sotheby’s, a work by the anonymous artist Banksy - known for his graffiti - self-destructed. A shredder hidden in the frame was triggered a few seconds after the final hammer blow, destroying part of the work «Girl with Balloon» and denouncing the «commodification» of art. A few years later and thanks to this legendary act, the work renamed «Love is in the Bin» is resold 18 times the amount of its first sale.

Discover Bansky

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Sotheby’s, as a leader in the world of auctions has recently opened a new branch, allowing to sell also fine wines and exceptional alcohols through the auction rooms.

Your prestigious real estate agency in Monaco, Monte-Carlo Sotheby’s International Realty, is the exclusive representative of the auction house Sotheby’s for the Principality of Monaco