Sotheby's
International auction house
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| 2024 | A judge ordered Sotheby's to reveal the client who put a Nazi-looted Tiepolo painting up for auction, which was originally stolen from Jewish art dealer Otto Fröhlich. |
| 2024 | The Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADIA acquired a minority stake in Sotheby's with an investment of approximately $1 billion. |
| November 2024 | A pair of rare Ming Dynasty wucai fish jars from the 16th century sold for £9.6 million ($12.5 million) at auction, significantly exceeding their pre-sale estimate of £1 million ($1.3 million). These are the only known complete pair with original covers. |
| July 17 2024 | Sotheby's sold the world's most complete Stegosaurus skeleton for US$44.5 million, establishing a new world record for the most expensive dinosaur skeleton or fossil sold at auction. |
| 2023 | RM Sotheby's expanded its global presence by officially launching operations in Dubai. |
| September 6 2023 | Freddie Mercury's Yamaha baby grand piano, used to compose 'Bohemian Rhapsody', sold for $2.1 million, setting a record for a composer's piano. |
| June 2023 | Agreed to purchase 945 Madison Avenue to house the company's headquarters, with plans to open the new space in 2025. |
| March 2023 | A New York judge ruled that Sotheby's must face trial on fraud charges for four artworks, including Salvator Mundi. The parties later agreed to settle via mediation. |
| 2022 | RM Sotheby's sold the world's most expensive new Porsche, the 'Sally' 2022 Porsche 911 Carrera, for 3.6 million USD during their Monterey sale. |
| 2022 | RM Sotheby's set the record for the highest-grossing collector car auction in Monterey, with total sales of $239,258,340. |
| October 25 2021 | 11 Picasso paintings from Steve Wynn's collection sold for $109 million in a Las Vegas pop-up salesroom. |
| July 9 2021 | Sotheby's sold a 101.38-carat diamond for $12.3 million in cryptocurrency, marking the most expensive physical object ever publicly offered for purchase with cryptocurrency at that time. |
| April 2021 | Sotheby's sold Nike Air Yeezy 1 shoes worn by Kanye West at the 2008 Grammy Awards, which became the first pair of sneakers reported to sell for over a million dollars. The shoes were purchased by the sneaker-investing platform RARES. |
| 2020 | Sotheby's Prize program concluded, after fulfilling commitments to shows still in formation. |
| 2020 | Overtook Christie's as the world's top auction house, with over $5 billion in aggregate sales. |
| May 17 2020 | Sotheby's auctioned Michael Jordan's autographed Nike 'Air Jordan 1' shoes from 1985, attracting a high-profile sale that appealed to a younger collector base. |
| 2019 | New York courts ordered Sotheby's to produce documents for criminal proceedings in Switzerland and Monaco regarding the Bouvier Affair. |
| 2019 | The 'Dancing Shiva' artifact was repatriated to India after being confirmed as likely stolen. |
| October 2019 | Sotheby's launched Sotheby's Own Label Collection, a line of a dozen wines after a two-year development process. |
| October 2019 | Charles F. Stewart brought in as new CEO, with Tad Smith transitioning to an advisory role. |
| July 2019 | Sotheby's sold a rare 1972 Nike Waffle Racing Flat 'Moon Shoe' in a notable sneaker auction, marking a significant moment in their expansion into sneaker sales. |
| June 2019 | Acquired by French-Israeli businessman Patrick Drahi at a 61% market premium. |
| May 14 2019 | Claude Monet's 'Meules' sold for over $110 million. |
| February 2019 | Announced a redesign and expansion of its New York headquarters, and launched a new online bidding platform. |
| 2018 | Dmitry Rybolovlev sued Sotheby's for $380 million in damages, alleging collusion with Yves Bouvier in fraudulently overvaluing artworks. |
| November 2018 | Sotheby's launched its bimonthly online magazine, Sotheby's Magazine. |
| October 5 2018 | Banksy's 'Girl with a Balloon' partially shredded after auction, then resold as 'Love is in the Bin' for £18.5 million, setting an artist record. |
| July 10 2018 | E.H. Shepard's original 1926 Hundred Acre Wood map sold for $600,000, setting a record for a book illustration. |
| January 25 2018 | Acquired the AI company Thread Genius for an undisclosed amount. |
| 2017 | Poland demanded transparency from Sotheby's regarding a painting slated for auction, alleging it was stolen during World War II. |
| 2017 | Sotheby's launched the Sotheby's Prize, an annual $250,000 award given to museums for exhibiting groundbreaking shows. |
| 2017 | First Sotheby's Prize awarded to two exhibitions: 'Many Tongues: Art, Language and Revolution in the Middle East and South Asia' curated by Omer Kholeif at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and 'Pop América: Contesting Freedom, 1965–1975' curated by Esther Gabara at the Nasher Museum. |
| October 3 2017 | A Ru ware brush-washer dish sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong for HK$294.3 million (nearly US$38 million), setting a new record auction price for Chinese ceramics. |
| 2016 | Legal subpoenas were issued to Sotheby's requesting letters related to a restitution claim for a Modigliani painting. |
| 2016 | Art traders planned to sue Sotheby's after discovering the Salvator Mundi painting was resold by Yves Bouvier to Dmitry Rybolovlev for $127.5 million. The dispute was quietly settled out of court. |
| 2016 | Spent $50 million to acquire Art Agency Partners, run by Amy Cappellazzo, Allan Schwartzman, and Adam Chinn. |
| July 2016 | Chinese insurance company Taikang Life became Sotheby's largest shareholder, with a 13.5% stake. |
| June 2 2016 | Pablo Picasso's 'Femme Assise' sold for $63.7 million, becoming the most expensive Cubist painting sold at auction. |
| March 2015 | Tad Smith succeeded William F. Ruprecht as CEO of Sotheby's. |
| February 2015 | Acquired a 25% stake in classic and vintage automobile auctioneer RM Auctions. |
| 2014 | An Indian High Court quashed Vaman Ghiya's previous conviction for artifact trafficking. |
| 2014 | An investigation began into a 'Dancing Shiva' artifact at the National Gallery of Australia, raising doubts about its provenance. |
| November 11 2014 | The Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication watch sold for $23.98 million, becoming the most expensive watch sold at auction. |
| August 8 2014 | Sotheby's conducted a seven-sale series of Chinese ceramics in Hong Kong, where a Chenghua chicken cup from the Meiyintang collection sold for a record US$36.05 million to billionaire Liu Yiqian, becoming the highest auction price for Chinese porcelain at that time. |
| 2013 | A collector sued Sotheby's for selling Nazi-looted art, claiming the painting's compromised provenance made it unsaleable. |
| 2013 | Sotheby's sells Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi for $80 million to art traders Warren Adelson, Alexander Parish, and Robert Simon. |
| 2013 | Sotheby's opened a gallery for private sales at 31 George Street near its London branch. |
| 2012 | U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement moved to seize a 10th-century Cambodian sandstone statue from Sotheby's, alleging it was stolen from a Koh Ker temple. |
| 2012 | Signed a 10-year joint-venture agreement to form Sotheby's (Beijing) Auction Co. Ltd., investing $1.2 million to take an 80 percent stake in the venture. |
| 2012 | The company launched a specialized website for farm and ranch property listings, initiating a series of targeted market internet listing platforms for specific property types. |
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This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles Sotheby's International Realty, Sotheby's & RM Sotheby's, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.