1970: the first million-pound picture
For all that a modern auction would still be familiar to James Christie, the art market has changed almost beyond recognition during the past half century and Christie’s with it. Then, there were daily sales, sometimes two or three, in a diversity of specialist fields that are no longer regarded as profitable. Informed collecting was a game anyone could play and not simply a word used as a synonym for investment. Annual turnover was somewhere in the £20 millions.
In 1965, a New York office was tentatively opened. The first telephone bid was accepted in 1968. In the following year, a sale was held in Tokyo and, on November 27, 1970, the sale of one painting changed the way that the art market was perceived. Velázquez’s sublime Juan de Pareja, painted in 1650, had visited Christie’s twice before: first in 1801, when it was sold for 39 guineas from Sir William Hamilton’s collection, and again in 1966, when, lent by the Earl of Radnor, it was the star of the bicentennial exhibition.
The auction record for any work of art had stood at £821,482 since 1961 (when Rembrandt’s Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer was bought by the Metropolitan Museum in New York), so when one of the greatest masterpieces in British hands came in for sale, speculation was intense far beyond the art world—could this be the first £1 million picture?
I can still remember the tension in the crowd of Christie’s colleagues crushed in the doorway behind the rostrum and the unruffled suavity with which Patrick Lindsay bought the hammer down at 2,200,000 guineas (roughly £32 million today). The purchaser was Wildenstein, acting on behalf of the Metropolitan Museum. After that, the floodgates opened and ever more million markers were exceeded.
I doubt that the tension felt by the onlookers at Rockefeller Plaza almost exactly 46 years later was any greater than ours, although Jussi Pylkkänen’s demeanour was as composed as Lindsay’s had been.
- - -
Between 1969 and 1973, Huon Mallalieu worked at Christie’s in the English watercolours and prints department. Christie’s anniversary is the subject of a new book, “Going Once: 250 Years of Culture, Taste and Collecting at Christie’s”, published by Phaidon.
-
The real name of a 'ghost' rainbow, the first ever omnishambles, and golf on the moon: Country Life Quiz of the Day 20 February 2025Some real brainteasers for you in our Quiz of the Day. Good luck!
-
Tom Parker Bowles's favourite recipe: French onion soupThis dish is no mere Gallic broth, rather pure bonhomie in a bowl — a boozy, beefy, allium-scented masterpiece that cries out for the chill depths of winter
-
Churchill's dentures, Bruno's boxing glove and Hurst's boot: The strangest auction in the Cotswolds is imminentThe Cotswold Auction Company's February 6 sale features some surprising lots from the Second World War, the world of sport and many many stamps.
-
A dispatch box, a bottle of whisky and some frogs — estate of Baroness Betty Boothroyd going under the hammerItems belonging to the first female Speaker of the House of Commons will be auctioned off for charity next week
-
Jean-Michel Basquiat painting goes under hammer for $110.5 millionBasquiat was 21 years old and still a relative unknown when he painted this piece.
-
Scarfe’s biting satire to go under the hammer at Sotheby’sA selection of cartoons by satirical cartoonist Gerald Scarfe are going under the hammer at Sotheby's.
-
Sotheby’s experts to appraise your antiques during Meissen event at ClivedenA team of experts from Sotheby's will be giving appraisals of antiques during an event organised by porcelain maker Meissen at the beautiful Cliveden House.
-
Long-neglected ‘copy’ turns out to be original Stubbs worth £750,000Gallery owner Archie Parker thought something was amiss when he came across this painting in an online sale catalogue, and he flew to New York to play out his hunch. It paid off.
-
Constable ‘added rainbow after his masterpiece first went on display’One of Britain's greatest-ever artists apparently touched up one of his most famous works to mark the death of a close friend.
-
Princess Eugenie helps boost Children & the Arts charity auction at Christie’sThe princess has helped secure donations of works, and has given her patronage to the sale helping a charity which she says has left her "truly inspired".
