40 Facts About Sotheby's

Sotheby's is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City.

In 1964, Sotheby's purchased Parke-Bernet, the largest auctioneer of fine art in the United States at the time.

In 1990, Sotheby's teamed up with dealer William Acquavella, to form Acquavella Modern Art, a Nevada general partnership and a subsidiary of Sotheby's Holding Company.

That decision came right after it was disclosed that Sotheby's had decided to close Emmerich's prime space at 41 East 57th Street, and that its artists would be handled out of Deitch Projects.

Sotheby's subsequently closed Andre Emmerich in 1998 and later sold its share in Deitch Projects back to Jeffrey Deitch.

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In 2006, Sotheby's acquired a Dutch dealership, Noortman Master Paintings, from its owner, Robert Noortman, for $82.

In May 2007, Sotheby's opened an office in Moscow in response to rapidly growing interest among Russian buyers in the international art market and held sales in Qatar in 2009.

Sotheby's created the BIDnow service, which allows bidders to bid real-time online while watching the broadcast auctions, with the exception of Wine auctions.

LiveBid is Sotheby's online bidding system exclusively for wine auctions.

On 25 January 2018, Sotheby's acquired the AI company Thread Genius for an undisclosed amount.

In February 2019, Sotheby's announced a redesign and expansion of its New York headquarters on the Upper East Side that is being led by the designer Shohei Shigematsu of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

In 2019, Sotheby's introduced an online valuations platform to their website to facilitate the provision of estimates.

In 2020, Sotheby's overtook Christie's as the world's top auction house for the first time since 2011, with over $5 billion in aggregate sales compared to its rival's $4.

In 1980, after a drop in sales, Sotheby's relocated its North American headquarters from Madison Avenue to a former cigar factory at 1334 York Avenue, New York.

Sotheby's was initially incorporated as Sotheby's Holdings, Inc in Michigan in August 1983.

Buyers can find out what is for sale at Sotheby's by browsing e-catalogues, visiting pre-sale exhibitions, purchasing print catalogues and registering for e-mail alerts.

Sotheby's requires that prospective buyers provide government-issued proof of identity and sometimes a bank reference.

That year, Sotheby's inaugurated a new gallery space called S2 at its York Avenue headquarters with a show of work by American abstract painter Sam Francis.

In 2013, Sotheby's opened a gallery for private sales close to its branch in London, in a five-story block at 31 George Street.

However, only the image archive mentioned on the Sotheby's website as of April 2021 is an out-of-date reference to the Cecil Beaton Studio Archive, which Cecil Beaton sold to Sotheby's in 1977.

In October 2019, Sotheby's launched Sotheby's Own Label Collection, a line of a dozen wines.

The project took two years to complete, and is based on Sotheby's best-selling wines, both those represented in-store and on its e-commerce platform.

Sotheby's has produced a bimonthly online magazine since November–December 2018, Sotheby's Magazine.

Sotheby's International Realty is a luxury real estate brand founded in 1976 by Sotheby's.

Sotheby's Prize, launched in 2017, is a $250,000 annual award given to museums that exhibit what are vaguely described as "groundbreaking shows".

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Sotheby's has set, then later reset, a number of world records for auctioned works of art.

In recent years, Sotheby's has been selling sneakers, both vintage designs in a "buy-now" sneaker shop, and high-value pairs, some worn by famous people, by auction.

In 1997, a Channel 4 Dispatches programme alleged that Sotheby's had been trading in antiquities with no published provenance, and that the organisation continued to use dealers involved in the smuggling of artefacts.

In 2012, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement moved to seize a 10th-century Cambodian sandstone statue from Sotheby's, alleging in a civil complaint before the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York that the company had put the work up for auction "despite knowing that it had been stolen from a temple" in Koh Ker.

Sotheby's served ten months of a one-year sentence in prison, while Brooks received a six-month home confinement and a penalty of US$350,000.

On 10 March 2011, Sotheby's sold a pair of sconces incorrectly attributed to Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann.

Noland had told Sotheby's there were problems with the condition of her painting Cowboys Milking, estimated to sell for between US$260,000 and $350,000.

In 2016, three New York art traders – Warren Adelson, president of Adelson Galleries, as well as New York-based art dealers Alexander Parish and Robert Simon – planned to sue Sotheby's for alleged fraud over the resale of Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, which they sold through Sotheby's in 2013 for $80 million.

Sotheby's dismissed these allegations as "entirely without merit" and stated it would seek to have the case thrown out.

Sotheby's had argued that handing over the documents would breach confidentiality and insisted that because it was named in ongoing proceedings in Switzerland, it should "be shielded from orders to produce the documents, " both of which the court rejected.

On 3 October 2013, Sotheby's responded to Third Point's rapid accumulation of Sotheby's stock by announcing its adoption of a shareholder rights plan, known generally as a "poison pill", whereby it forcibly diluted investor holdings in an attempt to ward off a hostile takeover.

Mr Loeb has accused Sotheby's of rebating the fees its takes for selling multimillion-dollar works, while taking less of the buyer's fees to attract more business.

Sotheby's has taken issue with the auction house's strategy of focusing on top clients and headline sales.

Sotheby's has even criticized board members' relatively low holdings of their own company's stock.

Later that day, Sotheby's issued a statement in regards to the report by the ISS:.