Today's Article - Christie's

This article is for quizzes on Tuesday November 29th...

Christie's, founded in 1766 by James Christie, is the world's leading art business, with sales in 2015 that totalled £4.8 billion / $7.4 billion.
Christie's has its main headquarters in London on King Street and in New York City on Rockefeller Plaza. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, the holding company of François-Henri Pinault.

The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766. However, other sources note that James Christie rented auction rooms from 1762, and newspaper advertisements of Christie's sales dating from 1759 have also been traced.

Christie's soon established a reputation as a leading auction house, and took advantage of London's new found status as the major centre of the international art trade after the French Revolution. From 1859, the company was called Christie, Manson & Woods. In 1958, it established its first overseas office, by placing a representative in Rome. The first overseas salesroom opened in Geneva, where Christie's holds jewellery auctions.

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 as 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 CEO) were given jail sentences, and Christie's, Sotheby's and their owners also paid a civil lawsuit settlement of $512 million.

On 11 May 2015, Pablo Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger ("Version O") sold for US$179.3 million to an unnamed buyer, becoming the most expensive work of art ever to be sold at auction at Christie's New York.

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