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44 unusual facts about Sotheby's


1882 FA Cup Final

In May 2013 a programme from the game sold at auction at Sotheby's for £35,250, a world record for a football programme.

1887 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final

In 2005, a gold medal won by the final's man-of-the-match Malachi O'Brien fetched €26,500 (three times its guide price) at London auction house Sotheby's.

Alexander's

Roseman contacted Sotheby's, who appraised the work, then was able to find a non-profit group to take possession of the mural enabling him to use the moving costs as a tax write-off for Roth.

Ashbourne portrait

The painting was auctioned at Sotheby's in 1928, and sold for £1,000 ($5,000) to Eustace Conway, an American lawyer, who in turn sold it to Henry Clay Folger's widow, Emily Jordan Folger in 1931, for the sum of $3,500, as a gift to the Folger Shakespeare Library, which opened the following year.

British occupation of Manila

Many valuable oil paintings from the Palacio del Gobernador in Intramuros, rare maps, charts, historical manuscripts and official documents, precious books, letters and papers of religious orders, together with bundles of primary source materials about the Philippines during the 17th century, were taken away by Dawsonne Drake and his successor, Alexander Dalrymple, and eventually ended up at the British Museum in London or auctioned by Sotheby's.

Cel

For example, a large "pan" cel depicting numerous characters from the finale of Who Framed Roger Rabbit sold for $50,600 at Sotheby's in 1989, including its original background.

Château Cantemerle

According to wine writer Tom Stevenson in The Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia, Château Cantemerle wines are characterized by rich, oaky, fruit flavors that balance well.

Drexel 4041

Upon his death, his extensive and valuable library was auctioned by Sotheby's over the course of five days.

Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh

The auction was held at Sotheby's of London on 10 November 1911, and the manuscript was purchased by Dublin physician, Michael F. Cox, for £79.00.

Easton, Maryland

After an alert store manager noticed that it was a signed original, the painting was subsequently auctioned for $40,600 at Sotheby's.

Edward Bingham

Bingham's Victoria Cross was auctioned by Sotheby's in 1983 and was purchased by the North Down Borough Council, County Down, who outbid a Canadian millionaire.

Football programme

It is now quite common for a 1920's FA Cup Final programme to fetch in excess of £1000 at respectable auction houses such as Sotheby's or Bonhams with said sale receiving national press coverage.

Frederik Christian Raben

In 1968, a descendant of his, baron Raben-Levetzau to Ålholm, put it on auction at Sotheby's in London.

Great Flood of 1951

In 2011 a painting of the flood "Flood Disaster" by Thomas Hart Benton sold for $1.9 million in an auction at Sotheby's in New York City.

Helmarshausen Abbey

The volume was sold at auction on 6 December 1983 at Sotheby's in London for £8,140,000, which made it the most expensive book in the world until the sale of the Codex Hammer in 1994.

Henry Tandey

Unaware that the medals should have been returned to the museum, the medals were auctioned at Sotheby's in London by his wife and a private collector subsequently purchased them.

Hernandez, New Mexico

A 1948 print of this photograph realized $609,600 at a Sotheby's New York auction in 2006.

Hôtel Drouot

In 2008 Hôtel Drouot was ranked fifth by sales amongst Paris auction houses, after Sotheby's, Christie's, Artcurial, and Tajan.

Johann Jakob Froberger

Also, in 2006 an autograph manuscript was discovered (and subsequently sold at Sotheby's), reportedly containing 35 pieces of music, 18 of which were previously unknown.

John Bly

He attended Berkhamsted School and his career began with Sotheby's, where he worked for four years before joining his family business in Tring (John Bly Antiques, started by John Bly's great grandfather).

John Trotter Brockett

He made considerable collections of books and coins and medals, in 1823-1824 the choice library and cabinets which he had formed up to that time were dispersed by auction at Sotheby's, the sale of the latter occupying ten days, and that of the former fourteen days.

Jones Diamond

In 1984, the Joneses auctioned the diamond through Sotheby's auction house in New York to an agent representing a lawyer in an undisclosed east Asian country for the sum of $74,250.

Just in Singapore

Uncle Kopi’s son (Rayson Tan), a professor, discovers that a Chinese ceramics auction by Sotheby's includes a particular piece named ‘Nine Dragon Tub’.

Koh Ker

In late 2011, the remote location drew media attention worldwide when Sotheby's attempted to sell a statue of a mythical Khmer Empire warrior.

Korabl-Sputnik 5

The re-entry module of the spacecraft Vostok 3KA-2 was auctioned at Sotheby's on 12 April 2011, the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's spaceflight, Vostok 1.

Lady Victoria Leatham

She began working for Sotheby's in Bond Street, concentrating on the East of England.

Lamentation of Christ

The last time was a Sotheby's auction in 2008, where it was purchased by an anonymous buyer for 1.46 million euros.

Lawrence Technological University

Alfred Taubman, former Lawrence Tech architecture student - one of the nation's leading real estate developers, innovators, and owners of shopping malls throughout the U.S. He also owns Sotheby's auctioneers and until recently owned the A&W restaurant chain.

Lunokhod 2

Ownership of Lunokhod 2 and the Luna 21 lander was sold by the Lavochkin Association for $68,500 in December 1993 at a Sotheby's auction in New York.

Patrick Mullane

The Sotheby's auction house in London were about to auction the medal that had previously been sold by Patrick Mullane's relatives.

Penne Percy Korth

Since 1986 Korth has been the senior Washington associate and client liaison and representative of the trust and estate division of Sotheby's.

Rashid-al-Din Hamadani

In 1980, an illuminated version of this manuscript in Arabic was sold at Sotheby's to Nasser David Khalili for £850,000, then the highest price ever paid for an Arabic manuscript.

Robert Orme

A part of Orme's library had been sold by him at Sotheby's about April 1796, when he gave up his house in Harley Street.

Robert Sidney, 1st Earl of Leicester

Sold again at Sotheby's and acquired by the British Library in 1975, the autograph is, as its first editor P. J. Croft pointed out, "the largest body of verse to have survived from the Elizabethan period in a text entirely set down by the poet himself".

Roxana Barry Robinson

She worked in the American painting department at Sotheby's and wrote about American art until she began to successfully publish short fiction in the 1980s.

Royal Armouries Ms. I.33

From the 17th century, the manuscript was part of the ducal library of Gotha (signature Cod. Membr. I. no. 115) until it disappeared in World War II and resurfaced at a Sotheby's auction in 1950, where it was purchased by the Royal Armouries.

Saint Paul Dispatch

Owner George Thompson, an Anglo-American banker and entrepreneur, had a Patek Philippe watch custom made for him in 1914 that was sold by Sotheby's in May 2006 for $1.54 million.

Summer Crossing

Upon the death of the house sitter, his nephew discovered Capote's papers and sent them to Sotheby's for auction in 2004.

Tancred Borenius

His opinion on art was highly valued, and he worked as a consultant at Sotheby's.

The Japanese Art Society of America

While the Society now addresses all aspects of Japanese art and culture, it traces its origins to a small group of ukiyo-e print collectors in and around New York City in 1973, at a time when Parke-Bernet Galleries (later to merge with Sotheby's) had begun to develop a market for Japanese art.

The Young Men's Magazine

A notable issue is volume 2, a copy of which was sold in December 2011 for 690,850 at Sotheby's in London.

Tintara

In 1977, the wine was sold to a private collector by Sotheby's auction house.

Urs Fischer

In 2010, one of Fischer's waxworks, Untitled (Candle) (2001) sold at Sotheby's for $1 million; it is one out of an edition of four identical pieces.

Weltvogelpark Walsrode

The German bird cage museum, also located in the bird park, was closed in 2006 and auctioned at Sotheby's.


Bal du moulin de la Galette

On May 17, 1990, his widow sold the painting for US$78 million at Sotheby's in New York City to Ryoei Saito (Saitō Ryōei), the honorary chairman of Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Company, Japan.

Church of All Saints, Pocklington

The most famous branch of the Sotheby family moved to Bishop Wilton and then to Hackney, London, and Sewardstone in Essex.

Dora Maar

On 3 May 2006, one of Picasso's portraits of her, Dora Maar au Chat ("Dora Maar with Cat") was auctioned at Sotheby's at a closing price of $95,216,000.

Emile Gruppe

Gruppe's paintings are often seen in major auction galleries, such as Sotheby's, Christies, and Skinners.

Établissements Jean-Pierre Moueix

In an auction at Sotheby's New York the work was purchased for US$ 86.3 million by the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, recording the highest price paid for a postwar work of art.

François Pinault

In February 2000, A. Alfred Taubman, majority shareholder of rival company Sotheby's stepped down amid a scandal after the Federal Bureau of Investigation had investigated commission-fixing between the two companies.

Gustavo Ojeda

That same year he had another one-man show of pastels on paper titled "An Intimate Look" in the Rotunda gallery of the Pan American Health Organization in Washington, DC, the small brochure for which boasted appreciations from the future head of Sotheby's Latin American art division, Giulio V. Blanc, and the Cuban poet and art critic Ricardo Pau-Llosa.

Head on a Green Sofa

It is a portrait of the late Lady Lambton, wife of Antony Lambton, Viscount Lambton, 6th Earl of Durham, and is to be sold at Sotheby's, London, 12 February 2014 by its present owner Edward Lambton, 7th Earl of Durham.

Jedd Novatt

Chaos Vascos II was selected for the Beyond Limits 2008 Sotheby's exhibition at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, England.

Liz Goldwyn

Later as an Associate of Sotheby's she conceptualized and produced several exhibitions in Los Angeles including a costume exhibition with Chanel in September 1999, and an installation of video art by Mariko Mori in conjunction with Deitch Projects, which was sponsored by Costume National.

Serena Sutcliffe

Serena Sutcliffe, Master of Wine, (born 1945), is the head of Sotheby's international wine department, as well as a prominent writer on wine.

Sovereign Art Foundation

Partners are sought for the sponsorship of the key events and previous exhibitions and auction dinners have been generously supported by Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, Barclays Wealth, Jaeger Le Coultre, Cathay Pacific, Sotheby's, ADM Capital and many others.

The Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia

The Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia is a reference work on wine written by Tom Stevenson and published since 1988 by Dorling Kindersley, selling over 600,000 copies in 14 languages.

Weald Country Park

The school, which was founded by a former owner of the Hall, Sir Anthony Browne, sold the painting to a private collector at Sotheby's in November 1985.