Rerun: James Christie held his first auction on 5th December, 1766 - billed as a sale of “genuine household furniture, jewels, plate, firearms, china and a large quantity of madeira and high flavoured claret” belonging to a “Noble Personage (deceased)”.
His auction-house, Christie’s, went on to become one of the world’s leading dealers of fine art. But it took Christie many years to exploit this opportunity, which he accomplished partly by leveraging well-connected friends. His milieu included Richard Tattersall, Thomas Chipperfield, Thomas Gainsborough, Horace Walpole, Joshua Reynolds and David Garrick - a ‘Who’s Who’ of 18th century London once known as ‘Christie's Fraternity of Godparents’.
In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain how Christie innovated public viewings, product placement and sales technique; connect the dots between the French Revolution and Christie’s biggest successes; and reveal how much it costs to buy a two-headed taxidermied lamb…
Further Reading:
• ‘James Christie: the eloquent auctioneer’ (Royal Academy of Arts, 2016): https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/james-christie-eloquent-auctioneer
• ‘Mr Christie, before Christie’s… His early days’ (Artprice, 2021): https://www.artprice.com/artmarketinsight/mr-christie-before-christies-his-early-days
• ‘Welcome to Christie’s’ (Christies, 2016): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ2kq20kK5U
‘Why am I hearing a rerun?’
Each Thursday and Friday we repeat stories from our archive of 800+ episodes, so we can maintain the quality of our independent podcast and bring you fresh, free content every Monday-Wednesday…
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The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.
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