Sotheby's
| Sotheby's
|
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|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | Corporation |
| ISIN | US8358981079 |
| founding | March 11, 1744 |
| Seat | New York City , New York , United States |
| management | Domenico De Sole (Chairman), Thomas S. Smith, Jr. (President and CEO) |
| Number of employees | 1577 |
| sales | 6.4 billion US dollars (2018) |
| Branch | Auction house |
| Website | www.sothebys.com |
| Status: December 2013 | |
Sotheby’s is a traditional auction house with centers in New York, London, Paris, Geneva and Hong Kong. It is one of the world's leading companies in the art and antiques market . Around 300 experts say they look after around 70 collecting areas, including paintings, furniture, musical instruments, manuscripts, sculptures, carpets, wine, watches, jewelry, cars and real estate.
The company has the legal form of a stock corporation. The chairman of the board is William F. Ruprecht. In Germany, Sotheby's has branches in Frankfurt, Munich, Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin.
history
In 1744, Sotheby's was founded in London by Samuel Baker. His nephew John Sotheby, who joined the company in 1778, gave it its final name. Books and manuscripts dominated the business for 200 years. Sotheby's owes its rise to one of the leading auction houses to the longstanding Chairman Peter Cecil Wilson , who strategically managed the internationalization of the auction business after the Second World War . In 1964, Sotheby's took over the Parke-Bernet auction house in New York .
In 1983 the American businessman and art lover Alfred Taubman took over the company. In his era, impressive top prices were paid for works by the Impressionists , for example $ 78 million for the Renoir painting Bal du moulin de la Galette . In May 1990, Sotheby's achieved record sales of $ 286 million in a single Impressionist auction.
Every year Sotheby's organizes more than 300 auctions worldwide. In the first half of 2013, Sotheby's achieved consolidated sales of US $ 3.14 billion. Over the past few decades, Sotheby's has auctioned exceptional masterpieces in the Impressionist & Classic Modern and Contemporary Art sectors and brought some of the world's most famous collections up for auction. In February 2010, Alberto Giacometti's L'Homme qui marche I became the most expensive sculpture ever sold at auction at 65,001,250 GBP (74,185,983 euros) (the estimated price was between 12 and 18 million GBP).
At the end of 2013, the investor activist Dan Loeb, who with his hedge fund Third Point is the largest shareholder in Sotheby's with a stake of 9.3 percent , demanded in an open letter the resignation of Ruprecht, who has been chairman of the supervisory board for 13 years, and criticized the lack of a concept for doing business on the Internet. In November 2014, Sotheby's announced its future collaboration with eBay .
On June 17, 2019, Sotheby's announced the acquisition by BidFair USA, a company owned by Patrick Drahi . After the transaction is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2019, Sotheby's is to be taken off the stock exchange. Sothebys shareholders are suing the takeover.
Major auctions
Sotheby's holds the world record for a palace auction: 43,950,915 euros were achieved in the auction of the “Works of Art of the Royal House of Hanover” in October 2005. The most successful German Sotheby's auctions to date were the Baden House auction in October 1995 at DM 77.7 million and the Thurn und Taxis auctions in October 1993 at DM 31.4 million .
On May 2, 2012, the most expensive work up for auction at the time was auctioned at Sotheby's by the auctioneer Tobias Meyer : Edvard Munch's 1895 version of the picture Der Schrei changed hands for 119,922,500 dollars (91,033,826 euros).
The auction of the painting Girl with Balloon by the artist Banksy in October 2018 attracted international attention . Immediately after the auction for the equivalent of around 1.2 million euros, the picture was partially destroyed by a shredder built into the frame. This mechanism was intended by the artist, but was not previously known to the public or the auction house. The unknown bidder who bought the picture nevertheless had the picture transferred.
literature
- Nicholas Faith: Sold, the rise and fall of the House of Sotheby. Macmillan, New York 1985, ISBN 0-02-536970-9 .
- Peter Watson : Sotheby's, the end of a myth. Droemer Knaur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-426-27014-5 (English original: Sotheby's, the inside story. Bloomsbury, London 1997, ISBN 0-7475-3443-8 ).
- Robert Lacey: Sotheby's. The art of auctions. A success story . Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-12928-8 .
- Paperback edition: Robert Lacey: The Sotheby's Story. Behind the scenes of the international art business. Heyne, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-453-18213-8 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sotheby's - overview
- ↑ faz.net: KUNSTMARKTREPORT: The figures for 2018. Accessed on May 3, 2019 .
- ↑ a b c Claudia Bodin: Herber loss. www.art-magazin.de, November 25, 2013, archived from the original on December 23, 2014 ; Retrieved July 20, 2014 .
- ↑ Locations. Retrieved August 18, 2020 .
- ↑ Thomas Jahn: Strategy of an Unequal Couple. Sotheby's works with Ebay. Europe boss Philipp Herzog von Württemberg explains why , in: Handelsblatt No. 219 of November 13, 2014, p. 18.
- ↑ https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/sothebys-announces-definitive-agreement-to-be-acquired-by-patrick-drahi?locale=en
- ^ Auction house: Sotheby's shareholders are suing for takeover. Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
- ^ Edvard Munch's 'The Scream' fetches record $ 119.9 million at auction. In: Online edition of the Chicago Sun-Times . May 2, 2012, archived from the original on November 25, 2012 ; Retrieved May 3, 2012 .
- ↑ Frankfurter Rundschau (ed.): Auction at Sotheby's: Banksy picture destroys itself . ( fr.de [accessed on November 13, 2018]).
- ↑ Die Welt (ed.): Shredded artwork: "I was shocked" - the bidder comments on the Banksy picture . October 11, 2018 ( welt.de [accessed November 13, 2018]).