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Sotheby's Book

Piles of money, international power plays, cutthroat business tactics, unique personalities, and the politics of social class--that should be enough for a really juicy read, don't you think? But why stop there when you can also have smuggling, Swiss bank accounts, espionage, royal families, and mansions on the Riviera? Did anyone mention art? This riveting history of Sotheby's, the world's richest auction house, has that too, of course, but mainly as a lifestyle accessory. With impeccable style, a deft touch with the telling detail, and an elegant way of delivering gossip with the proper journalistic distance, Robert Lacey has plotted a company history that reads like a thriller. There are unbusinesslike gems on nearly every page: "The tasty young ladies of 'Client … read more...

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Product Description
This volume explores the history of Sotheby's auction house, tracing its beginnings back to 1744. It was in the latter half of the 19th century, when economic instability forced the aristocrats to sell off many of their treasures, that Sotheby's began to lay the foundations of the modern art market. The Sotheby's-Christie's rivalry intensified in the early-1900s and they have been battling it out ever since over the likes of Cezanne, Picasso, Van Gogh and Monet. Lacey takes the reader through the unprecedented boom of the 1980s, when Van Gogh's "Irises" went for $53.9 million, and examines the catastrophic effects of an inflation still being felt today.

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Sotheby's Book

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