Christie's Images is the picture library for the auction house and has an archive of several million fine and decorative art images representing items sold in its sale rooms around the world. With offices in New York and London, images are available for reproduction.

About Christie's

Christie's is a leading art business and a fine arts auction house.

Locations

Christie's main London saleroom is on King Street in St. James's, where it has been based since 1823. It also has a second London saleroom in South Kensington which opened in 1975 and primarily handles the middle market. Christie's South Kensington is one of the worlds busiest auction rooms. Christie's also has offices (not all are salerooms) worldwide including New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Rome, South Korea, Milan, Spain, Japan, China, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Tel Aviv, Dubai, and Mexico City.

Price-fixing scandal

In 2000, allegations surfaced of a price-fixing arrangement between Christie's and Sotheby's, another major auction house. Executives from Christie's subsequently alerted the Department of Justice of their suspicions of commission-fixing collusion. Christie's gained immunity from prosecution in the United States after a longtime employee of Christie's confessed and cooperated with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Numerous members of Sotheby's senior management were fired soon thereafter, and A. Alfred Taubman, the largest shareholder of Sotheby's at the time, took most of the blame; he and Dede Brooks (the COO) were given jail sentences.

Notable auctions

More recently, Christie's has auctioned off 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. In 1998, Christie's in New York sold the famous Archimedes Palimpsest after the conclusion of a lawsuit in which its ownership was disputed.

On Jan. 31 and Feb.1, 2007 Christie's auction house sold a total of $21 million worth of jewelry and art in Dubai. It was the first time ever an international auction house had held a jewelry sale in the Middle Eastern tourist and retail mecca, and the second sale of art In October 2006 Christie's auctioned 1,000 lots of official Star Trek contents from the CBS Paramount Television studios. A model of Starship Enterprise-D, used in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek Generations sold for $576,000. 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.

Christie's continues to dominate the global market for fine arts, having staged the five largest auctions of all time in November 2006, and May and June 2007.

In 1995, Christie's became the first international auction house to exhibit works of art in Beijing, China.

In 1987, during the Royal Albert Hall auction, Christie famously auctioned off a Bugatti Royale automobile for a world record price of £5.5 million.

Christie's Education