After that Lacey backtracks to deep background, the auction house's founding in London during the eighteenth century and the history that followed. They've always been in competition with Christies, but both sides have had to remain dignified in public. During the early years Christies specialized in art and Sotheby's in books, but it was inevitable that the two would start to step on each other's toes.
Another interesting detail is that Peter Cecil Wilson, one of their top auctioneers of the twentieth century, served in British Intelligence with none other than Ian Fleming. He often claimed to be the basis for James Bond. Weird if true, but who knows?
2 comments:
Ah yes, the trappings of great wealth. One of the first things we noticed when we came to Victoria was that Sotheby's and Christie's were the real estate agents for particularly fancy houses. I wonder if the agents arrive in classic Bentleys or Rolls Royce's?
I'm sure there was lots of intrigue and backstabbing involved in their businesses right from the start - probably a fair amount of plundering the former plunderers too. The stories would be bound to be fascinating, especially the early ones when the two businesses were inaugurated. One thing that's certain is they're always located where the big money is found. Another thing is that they're both very good at determining the inherent value of art objects.
Did you ever look up a picture of Peter Wilson? He wasn't close to the way Ian Fleming described Bond - plus, he was gay so hardly a lady's man.
Lacey's book The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium sounds very interesting too:
"How clothes were fastened in a world without buttons
The rudiments of medieval brain surgery
How dolphins forecasted weather
The recipe for a medieval form of Viagra
Body parts a married woman had to forfeit if she committed adultery."
Let me know if you come across a copy.
I've seen signs for Sotheby's and Christie's on houses as well. Not that many around here, but it's happened. Selling houses is a natural continuation of the business they were already in, I suppose. And it's probably a matter of high etiquette which car to drive to the site. You don't want to show the seller up.
The two houses--a phrase that makes them sound like either the Montagues and Capulets or the backstabbing clans on Game of Thrones, either of which is somewhat fitting--have always been competitive. In the early years their rivalry was subtle and passive-aggressive. They got louder about it when they started doing more business in America, and specifically when they got headquarters in New York. Art experts are a big part of the field. With more recent artworks they may be trying to influence the value of a piece as much as if not more than suss it out from the evidence.
Oh, I know he was gay and no Adonis. It is just within the realm of possibility that Fleming saw him as a prime example of a devious mind and he influenced Bond that way.
The book about the year 1000 sounds pretty interesting and I'll have to take a look at it one of these days. Of course the price for adultery--definitely for women but sometimes also for men---was pretty severe. All the more reason to never admit to it.
I'll be on the lookout.
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