The House of Stories

Founded in London in 1744, Sotheby's has always been more than an auction house. It is a place where objects arrive marked by human lives. Behind every piece is a story: a devoted collector, a fallen dynasty, an artist who never knew what their work would become. Now, two new releases offer a rare window into some of the most interesting of these stories.

Icons: 100 Extraordinary Objects from Sotheby's History is a new book that brings together the most significant works ever sold under the Sotheby's banner – chosen not for the prices they achieved, but for the stories they reveal. Their quality, rarity, provenance. Each objects speaks to the circumstances that made it matter. The breadth is extraordinary.

Arranged chronologically, the book opens with 'Sue', a 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, and ends with Maurizio Cattelan's 2019 Comedia - the now infamous banana duct-taped to a wall that became a flash-point for debates about modern art. In between, other astonishing stories unfold: a 1933 Double Eagle coin that spent six decades on the US Secret Service's Most Wanted; a 17th-century Italian Baroque cabinet discovered in a neighbourhood pizza parlour; the now-mythic Banksy's Girl With Balloon which self-destructed seconds after the hammer fell.

 

The largest, most extensive, and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex fossils ever found, "Sue" sold under the hammer for a staggering US$8.36 million in 1997 at Sotheby's in New York City.

Arranged chronologically, the book opens with 'Sue', a 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, and ends with Maurizio Cattelan's 2019 Comedia - the now infamous banana duct-taped to a wall that became a flash-point for debates about modern art.

 

With Comedian – a banana taped to a wall – provocateur Maurizio Cattelan shows that, more than a century after Marcel Duchamp scandalised the art world with Fountain – a porcelain urinal exhibited in 1917 as a readymade sculpture – conceptual art still has the power to generate controversy.

In between, other astonishing stories unfold: a 1933 Double Eagle coin that spent six decades on the US Secret Service's Most Wanted; a 17th-century Italian Baroque cabinet discovered in a neighbourhood pizza parlour; the now-mythic Banksy's Girl With Balloon which self-destructed seconds after the hammer fell.

 

The shredding of Banksy's Girl With Balloon live at auction in 2018 has gone down in art history. But even more fascinating is the story of how Sotheby's navigated the newly titled Love Is In The Bin through a media storm and into a new market moment.Each entry is a study in human drama. The Guennol Lioness, a three-inch Mesopotamian limestone figure that holds the auction record for any ancient work of art. Jane Birkin's original Hermès Birkin, which sold for an unprecedented price for a handbag. Works by Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dalí, van Gogh, Jackson Pollock – each one a reflection of a life, an era, and an extraordinary legacy. 

 

The very first Birkin bag – created by Hermès for Jane Birkin herself – is the blueprint for a fashion legend. Bearing her initials and carrying the marks of years of daily use and activism, it’s a true cultural artefact that embodies both personal style and public purpose.

The companion to the Icons book is The Specialist, a Sotheby's podcast in which the auction house’s own category experts tell the stories first-hand. Each episode homes in on a single remarkable work or item - its provenance, its discovery, its significance. Their enthusiasm is unmistakable, drawing listeners into the detail, the intrigue, and the quiet thrill of uncovering something exceptional

Together, Icons and The Specialist step beyond the moment of sale, uncovering the human narratives that endure long after the gavel falls.

 

The Specialist is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.
https://www.sothebys.com/en/series/sothebys-talks#the-specialist

 

Icons: 100 Extraordinary Objects is available from 19th May wherever good books are sold.
https://www.phaidon.com/en-anz/products/icons-100-extraordinary-objects-from-sothebys-history