Christie's - Notable Auctions

Notable Auctions

• In 1987, during the Royal Albert Hall auction, Christie's famously auctioned off a Bugatti Royale automobile for a world record price of £5.5 million.
• In May 1989, Pontormo's Portrait of a Halberdier was sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum for $35.2 million, more than tripling the previous auction record for an Old Master painting.
• In 1998, Christie's in New York sold the famous Archimedes Palimpsest after the conclusion of a lawsuit in which its ownership was disputed.
• In November 1999, a single strand necklace of 41 natural and graduated pearls, which belonged to Barbara Hutton, was auctioned by Christie's Geneva for $1,476,000.
• In June 2001, Elton John sold 20 of his cars at Christie's, saying he didn't get the chance to drive them because he was out of the country so often. The sale, which included a 1993 Jaguar XJ220, the most expensive at £234,750, and several Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, and Bentleys, raised nearly £2 million.
• In 2006, a single Imperial Qing Dynasty porcelain bowl, another item which belonged to Barbara Hutton, was auctioned by Christie's Hong Kong for a price of $22,240,000.
• 16 May 2006, Christie's auctioned a Stradivarius called The Hammer for a record US$3,544,000. It was, at that time, the most paid at public auction for any musical instrument.
• In October 2006, Christie's auctioned 1,000 lots of official Star Trek contents from the CBS Paramount Television studios. A model of the starship Enterprise-D, used in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek Generations sold for $500,000.
• In November 2006, four celebrated paintings by Gustav Klimt were sold for a total of $192 million, after being restituted by Austria to Jewish heirs after a lengthy legal battle.
• In December 2006, The black dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's was sold for £467, 200 at Christie's South Kensington.
• In 2006 Christie's lists for auction artefacts known to be looted from Bulgaria and refuses to stop the sale despite strong evidence from the Bulgaria's culture ministry.
• Continuing to dominate the global market for fine arts, Christie's staged the five largest auctions of all time in November 2006, and May and June 2007.
• In May 2007, Christie's Paris auctioned 'L'Enfant et l'Art,' a Love & Art Children's Foundation collection created by children afflicted with cancer under the guidance of artist Alécia de Menezes Seidler. The art collection of 21 paintings auctioned by François Curiel, President of Christie's Europe, raised US$350,000 for the children of Les P'tits Cracks, a Parisian association dedicated to caring for children with cancer. Prior to the auction, the L'Enfant et l'Art collection exhibited at Les Arts Décoratifs in the Louvre Palace.
• In November 2007, an album of eight leaves, ink on paper, by China's Ming Dynasty court painter Dong Qichang was sold at the Christie's Hong Kong Chinese Paintings Auction for US$6,235,500, a world auction record for the artist.
• In 2008, the Ink and wash painting of Gundam drawn by Hisashi in 2005 was sold in the Christie's auction held in Hong Kong with a price of US$600,000.
• On 24 May 2008, Le Bassin Aux Nymphéas by Claude Monet was sold for a price of $80.4 million, the highest price ever for a Monet.
• Over a three-day sale in Paris in February 2009, Christie's auctioned the monumental private collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé for a record-breaking 370 million euros (US$490 million). It was the most expensive private collection ever sold at auction, breaking auction records for Brâncuşi, Matisse, and Mondrian. A "Dragons'" armchair by Irish furniture designer Eileen Gray sold for 21.9 million euros (US$28 million), setting an auction record for a piece of 20th century decorative art.
• The 2009 auction (for US$36 million) of two imperial bronze zodiac sculptures collected by Yves Saint Laurent, looted in 1860 from the Old Summer Palace of Beijing by French and British forces at the close of the Second Opium War caused controversy.
• Christie's has auctioned artwork and personal possessions linked to historical figures such as Pablo Picasso; Rembrandt; Diana, Princess of Wales; Leonardo da Vinci; Vincent van Gogh; Napoleon Bonaparte; Marilyn Monroe; and others.
• Christie's Hong Kong, November 2009 sale of Fine Modern Chinese Paintings, sold a work by Fu Baoshi titled "Landscape inspired by Dufu's Poetic Sentiments", for HK$60,020,000 (US$7,780,105) – a world record for the artist.
• Christie's auctioned Pablo Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust on 4 May 2010. The piece sold for US$106.5 million, making the sale among the most expensive paintings ever sold.
• On 14 June 2010 Amedeo Modigliani's Tête, a limestone sculpture of a woman's head, became the second most expensive sculpture ever sold and the most expensive work of art sold in France.
• On 18 April 2012, the silver cup given to the marathon winner, Greek athlete Spyridon Louis, at the first modern Olympic Games staged in Athens in 1896 sold for UK£541,250 (US$860,000), breaking the auction record for Olympic memorabilia.
• On 22 June 2012 George Washington‘s personal annotated copy of the “Acts Passed at a Congress of the United States of America” from 1789, which includes The Constitution of the United States and a draft of the Bill of Rights, was sold at Christie’s for a record $9,826,500, with fees the final cost, to The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. This was the record for a document sold at auction.