The official company literature states that founder James Christie (1730–1803) conducted the first sale in London on 5 December 1766,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766. However, other sources note that James Christie rented auction rooms from 1762, and newspaper advertisements for Christie's sales dating from 1759 have also been traced.<ref>Gazetteer and London Daily Advertiser (London, England), 25 September 1762; Issue 10460</ref> After his death, Christie's son, James Christie the Younger (1773–1831) took over the business.<ref>M.A. Michael (2019). "Not Exactly a Connoisseur A New Portrait of James Christie". The British Art Journal (London: Robin Simon). 19:76.</ref>
Christie's was a public company, listed on the London Stock Exchange, from 1973 to 1999. In 1974, Jo Floyd was appointed chairman of Christie's. He served as chairman of Christie's International plc from 1976 to 1988, until handing over to Lord Carrington, and later was a non-executive director until 1992.<ref>Sarah Lyall (27 February 1998), Jo Floyd, 74; Led Growth and Change at Christie'sThe New York Times.</ref> Christie's International Inc. held its first sale in the United States in 1977. Christie's growth was slow but steady since 1989, when it had 42% of the auction market.<ref name="nytimes.com">Carol Vogel (11 February 1997), At the Wire, Auction Fans, It's, It's . . . Christie's!The New York Times.</ref>
In 1990, the company reversed a long-standing policy and guaranteed a minimum price for a collection of artworks in its May auctions.<ref>Rita Reif (12 March 1990), Christie's Reverses Stand on Price GuaranteesThe New York Times.</ref> In 1996, sales exceeded those of Sotheby's for the first time since 1954.<ref>Carol Vogel (6 May 1998), Frenchman Gets Big Stake In Christie'sThe New York Times.</ref> However, profits did not grow at the same pace;<ref name="Carol Vogel 1998">Carol Vogel (19 May 1998), Frenchman Seeks the Rest Of Christie'sThe New York Times.</ref> from 1993 through 1997, Christie's annual pretax profits were about $60M , whereas Sotheby's annual pretax profits were about $265M for those years.<ref name="ReferenceA">Carol Vogel (19 February 1998), Christie's Ends Talks On Takeover By SwissThe New York Times.</ref>
In 1993, Christie's paid $10.9M for the London gallery Spink & Son, which specialised in Oriental art and British paintings; the gallery was run as a separate entity. The company bought Leger Gallery for $3.3M in 1996, and merged it with Spink to become Spink-Leger.<ref>Carol Vogel (22 June 2001), Re: Real EstateThe New York Times.</ref> Spink-Leger closed in 2002. To make itself competitive with Sotheby's in the property market, Christie's bought Great Estates in 1995, then the largest network of independent estate agents in North America, changing its name to Christie's Great Estates Inc.<ref name="nytimes.com" />
In December 1997, under the chairmanship of Lord Hindlip, Christie's put itself on the auction block, but after two months of negotiations with the consortium-led investment firm SBC Warburg Dillon Read it did not attract a bid high enough to accept.<ref name="ReferenceA" /> In May 1998, François Pinault's holding company, Groupe Artémis S.A., first bought 29.1 per cent of the company for $243.2M, and subsequently purchased the rest of it in a deal that valued the entire company at $1.2bn.<ref name="Carol Vogel 1998" /> The company has since not been reporting profits, though it gives sale totals twice a year. Its policy, in line with UK accounting standards, is to convert non-UK results using an average exchange rate weighted daily by sales throughout the year.<ref name="bloomberg.com">Scott Reyburn (17 July 2012), Rothko, Private Sales Help Boost Christie's Revenue 13%Bloomberg.</ref>
On 28 December 2008, The Sunday Times reported that Pinault's debts left him "considering" the sale of Christie's and that a number of "private equity groups" were thought to be interested in its acquisition.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In January 2009, the company employed 2,100 people worldwide, though an unspecified number of staff and consultants were soon to be cut due to a worldwide downturn in the art market;<ref name="downturn">Template:Cite news</ref> later news reports said that 300 jobs would be cut.<ref name="downturn2">Template:Cite news</ref> With sales for premier Impressionist, Modern, and contemporary artworks tallying only US$248.8M in comparison to US$739M just a year before, a second round of job cuts began after May 2009.<ref name="BloombergSecondCut">Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2012, Impressionist works, which dominated the market during the 1980s boom, were replaced by contemporary art as Christie's top category. Asian art was the third most lucrative area.<ref name="bloomberg.com" /> With income from classic auctioneering falling, treaty sales made £413.4 million ($665M) in the first half of 2012, an increase of 53% on the same period last year; they now represent more than 18% of turnover.<ref>Georgina Adam (17 October 2012),
Battle for private selling showsTemplate:WebarchiveThe Art Newspaper.</ref> The company has since promoted curated events, centred on a theme rather than an art classification or time period.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
As part of a companywide review in 2017, Christie's announced the layoffs of 250 employees, or 12 per cent of the total work force, based mainly in Britain and Europe.<ref name="auto">Scott Reyburn (8 March 2017), Christie's to Close a London Salesroom and Scale Back in AmsterdamThe New York Times.</ref>
In June 2021, Christie's Paris held its first sale dedicated to women artists, most notably Louise Moillon'sNature morte aux raisins et pêches.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2022 Christie's sold $8.4bn in art and luxury goods, an all-time high for any auction house.<ref name="All-Time High"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
From 2008 until 2013, Christie's charged 25 per cent for the first $50,000; 20 per cent on the amount between $50,001 and $1M, and 12 per cent on the rest. From 2013, it charged 25 per cent for the first $75,000; 20 per cent on the next $75,001 to $1.5M and 12 per cent on the rest.<ref>Carol Vogel (18 February 2013), Christie's Raises Its Commissions for First Time in Five Years. The New York Times.</ref>
As of 2023, Christie's commission (buyer's premium) is 26 per cent of the hammer price of each lot up to £800,000/US$1,000,000, plus 21 per cent of the hammer price from £800,001/US$1,000,001 up to and including £4,500,000/US$6,000,000, and 15 per cent on the rest.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
As of 2023, Christie's has offices in 46 countries worldwide, with salerooms in London, New York, Paris, Geneva, Milan, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.<ref name="Christie's Locations"/>
Christie's flagship saleroom is in London on King Street in St. James's, where it has been based since 1823. It had a second London saleroom in South Kensington which opened in 1975 and primarily handled the middle market. Christie's permanently closed the South Kensington saleroom in July 2017 as part of their restructuring plans announced in March 2017. The closure was due in part to a considerable decrease in sales between 2015 and 2016 in addition to the company expanding its online sales presence.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In early 2017, Christie's also announced plans to scale back its operation in Amsterdam.<ref name="auto" />
Until 2001, Christie's East, a division that sold lower-priced art and objects, was located at 219 East 67th Street. In 1996, Christie's bought a townhouse on East 59th Street in Manhattan as a separate gallery where experts could show clients art in complete privacy to conduct private treaty sales.<ref name="nytimes.com" />
In 1998, Christie's in New York sold the famous Archimedes Palimpsest after the conclusion of a lawsuit in which its ownership was disputed.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In November 1999, a single strand necklace of 41 natural and graduated pearls, which belonged to Barbara Hutton, was auctioned by Christie's Geneva for $1,476,000.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In June 2001, Elton John sold 20 of his cars at Christie's, saying he didn't drive them often because he was frequently out of the country. The sale, which included a 1993 Jaguar XJ220, the most expensive at £234,750, and several Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, and Bentleys, raised nearly £2M.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2006, a single Imperial Qing dynasty porcelain bowl, another item which belonged to Barbara Hutton, was auctioned by Christie's Hong Kong for a price of US$19.5M.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
On 16 May 2006, Christie's auctioned a Stradivarius called The Hammer for a record US$3,544,000. It was, at that time, the most paid at public auction for any musical instrument.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In November 2006, four celebrated paintings by Gustav Klimt were sold for a total of $192M, after being restituted by Austria to Jewish heirs after a lengthy legal battle.<ref name="Klimt">Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2006, controversy arose after Christie's auctioned artefacts known to be looted from Bulgaria.<ref name="Art Info News">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In November 2007, an album of eight leaves, ink on paper, by China's Ming dynasty court painter Dong Qichang was sold at the Christie's Hong Kong Chinese Paintings Auction for US$6,235,500, a world auction record for the artist.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Over a three-day sale in Paris in February 2009, Christie's auctioned the monumental private collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé for a record-breaking 370M euros.<ref name="Reuters">Template:Cite news</ref> It was the most expensive private collection ever sold at auction,<ref name="NYTYSL">Template:Cite news</ref> breaking auction records for Brâncuși, Matisse, and Mondrian.<ref name="Reuters" /> The "Dragons" armchair by Irish furniture designer Eileen Gray sold for 21.9M euros, setting an auction record for a piece of 20th century decorative art.<ref name=TelegApr16>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref>
In 2009, controversy arose again after the auction of two imperial bronze zodiac sculptures (for US$36M) collected by Yves Saint Laurent, as the items had been looted in 1860 from the Old Summer Palace of Beijing by French and British forces at the close of the Second Opium War.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Christie's Hong Kong, November 2009 sale of Fine Modern Chinese Paintings, sold a work by Fu Baoshi titled Landscape inspired by Dufu's Poetic Sentiments, for HK$60M (US$7.7M) – a world record for the artist.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
On 18 April 2012, the silver cup given to the marathon winner, Greek athlete Spyridon Louis, at the first modern Olympic Games staged in Athens in 1896 sold for £541,250, breaking the auction record for Olympic memorabilia.<ref name="Olympic memorabilia">Template:Cite news</ref>
On 11 May 2015, Pablo Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger ("Version O") sold for Template:USD179.3M to an unnamed buyer, becoming the most expensive work of art ever to be sold at auction at Christie's New York. In November of the same year, Amedeo Modigliani's Nu Couché (1917–18) sold at Christie's in New York for $170.4M, making it the second most expensive work sold at auction.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In May 2016, the Oppenheimer Blue diamond sold for CHF56,837,000, a record price for a jewel at auction.<ref name=GuardMay16>Template:Cite news</ref>
On 7 July 2016, the highest price ever sold for an old master painting at Christie's was achieved with £44,882,500 for Rubens' Lot and his Daughters.<ref>Alain Truong art blog</ref><ref>6010107 Christie's sale record</ref>
On 25 June 2020, Christie's sold a Timurid Quran manuscript, described as "rare and breathtaking", for £7M (with fees), ten times its estimate.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref> The price was the highest price ever paid for a Quran manuscript.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> Probably created at a Timurid prince's court, the manuscript comprised 534 folios of Arabic calligraphy on "gold-flecked, coloured paper from Ming China". The sale was criticized that since the "object apparently has no provenance prior to the 1980s, we can't know anything about the context in which it was removed from its country of origin."<ref name=":0" />
In May 2022, Andy Warhol's silkscreen painting Shot Sage Blue Marilyn sold at Christie's New York for $195M, making it the most expensive work of American art sold at auction and the most expensive work of 20th-century art sold at auction.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In September and October 2022 at Christie's, the James Bond film franchise auctioned 61 lots of vehicles, watches, costumes, props, posters, and memorabilia from the 25 Bond films. The auction raised nearly £7M from 28 countries, and proceeds went to over 45 charities.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In May 2023, the jewellery collection once owned by Austrian billionaire Heidi Horten, who died in 2022, set a record for the most valuable single collection of jewels in an auction, fetching CHF180M ($201M).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In August 2023, Christie's cancelled a second Horten jewellery sale, which had been scheduled for November, after Jewish charities and organizations refused to accept portions of the proceeds from the first sale citing the source of Horten's wealth.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In November 2024 a painting by surrealist artist Rene Magritte broke an auction record, selling for more than $121 million at Christie's in New York. The previous record for a work by Magritte was $79 million, set in 2022.<ref name="Magritte Painting">Template:Cite news</ref>
In May 2025, a painting by Marlene Dumas Miss January (1997) broke the record for a living woman artist, selling for 13.6 million with fees at Christie's 21st Century Evening sale in New York.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 2000, allegations surfaced of a price-fixing arrangement between Christie's and Sotheby's. Executives from Christie's subsequently alerted the Department of Justice of their suspicions of commission-fixing collusion.
Christie's gained immunity from prosecution in the United States as a longtime employee of Christie's confessed and cooperated with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. Numerous members of Sotheby's senior management were fired soon thereafter, and A. Alfred Taubman, the largest shareholder of Sotheby's at the time, took most of the blame; he and Dede Brooks (the CEO) were given jail sentences, and Christie's, Sotheby's and their owners also paid a civil lawsuit settlement of $512M.<ref name="AR">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="CM">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="KW">Template:Cite web</ref>
Insufficient or invalid provenance for looted works
Christie's has been criticised for "an embarrassing history of a lack of transparency around provenance".<ref name=":0" /> In 2003, Christie's was criticised for its handling of two Nazi-looted artworks claimed by heirs of the original Jewish owners. In one case, it refused to divulge to the heirs the location of an Italian painting formerly owned by Jewish Viennese banker Heinrich Graf, looted by the Gestapo.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Christie's eventually revealed the holder's name after the Jewish Community of Vienna filed a successful suit in the UK on behalf of Graf's American daughters in late 2004.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In the other 2003 case Christie's declined to inform the family that it had discovered that a painting consigned to it had been looted from Ulla and Moriz Rosenthal, a Jewish couple murdered in Auschwitz.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
On 19 May 2020, the craft supply company Hobby Lobby, who purchased material for loan or donation to The Museum of the Bible, filed a diversity action on the auction house regarding the sale and purchase of the Gilgamesh tablet by private sale agreement on 14 July 2014, allegedly while knowing the Iraqi-origin cuneiform object had a fake provenance.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In June 2020, they were forced to withdraw four Greek and Roman antiquities from sale after it was discovered that they came from "sites linked to convicted antiquities traffickers".<ref name=":0" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The same month, they were criticised for putting up a Benin plaque and two Igboalusi figures for auction.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":2">Template:Cite web</ref> The plaque was tied to similar plaques taken from Nigeria during the Benin Expedition of 1897 and remained unsold after an auction was held.<ref name=":2" /> The alusi figures are alleged to have been taken from Nigeria during the Nigerian Civil War and were sold for €212,500 (after fees), below their low estimate of €250,000.<ref name=":2" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Christie's claims to require "verifiable documented provenance that the object was taken out of its source nation prior to the earlier date of 2000, or the date which is legally applicable between the country in which the sale takes place and the source nation".<ref name=":2" />
In November 2014, Christie's had to withdraw a prehistoric sculpture from Sardinia, valued at $800,000–$1.2m, put on auction by Michael Steinhardt, a US-billionaire, who was given a lifetime ban on acquiring further antiquities by the Manhattan district attorney's office in 2021.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> After having acquired artworks with unverified provenance for years, for example by convicted art dealer Giacomo Medici, Steinhard's collection had been subjected to search warrants and investigations since 2017. He finally surrendered 180 looted and illegally smuggled antiquities valued at $70m. According to The Guardian, the district attorney said: "For decades, Michael Steinhardt displayed a rapacious appetite for plundered artefacts without concern for the legality of his actions, the legitimacy of the pieces he bought and sold or the grievous cultural damage he wrought across the globe.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In February 2023 a French court ordered Christie's to unconditionally restitute Dutch painting The Penitent Magdalene, signed Adriaen van der Werff (1707), looted in 1942 from Lionel Hauser in Paris and last sold by the auction house without any provenance in London in April 2005.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Christie's had offered the Hauser heirs 50 per cent of the sale price; the heirs refused the offer and took the case to court.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 2018, Christie's began offering "digital passports" stored on the blockchain to a select number of private collectors purchasing art. These "certificates of ownership" gave the buyer a clear and transparent provenance record of the piece of art they were purchasing, a record that could never be erased or manipulated, and accessible worldwide.<ref>Artory to Join Christie’s Panel on Art and BlockchainArtory.</ref>
Six years later in October 2024, two Christie's auctions exhibited this block-chain technology in the most public events to date. In the first, on 2 October, Christie's New York showcased the work of Diane Arbus and Cindy Sherman in An Eye Towards the Real: Photographs from the Collection of Ambassador Trevor Traina - a former U.S. ambassador to Austria and founder of the web3 wallet provider Kresus. Eight days later, on 10 October, Christie's New York auctioned Ascend, a digital work created by Ryan Koopmans and Alice Wexell, marking the first time a piece inscribed on Bitcoin's Ordinals protocol had been sold in a live auction at Christie’s. Christie's sees this "integration of physical and digital ownership" as the future of art auctioning, and the most efficient way for buyers to know they've purchased a work with as accurate and secure a provenance as possible.<ref>Dorian Batycka (11 October 2024), From ordinals to ownership: Christie's explores new frontiers of blockchain-based provenanceThe Art Newspaper.</ref>
Christie's first ventured into storage services for outside clients in 1984, when it opened a 100,000 square feet brick warehouse in London that was granted "Exempted Status" by HM Revenue and Customs,<ref name="online.wsj.com">Kelly Crow (26 April 2010), The Ultimate Walk-In Closet: Christie's Offers Art Storage in BrooklynThe Wall Street Journal.</ref> meaning that property may be imported into the United Kingdom and stored without incurring import duties and VAT. Christie's Fine Art Storage Services, or CFASS, is a wholly owned subsidiary that runs Christie's storage operation.
Christie's Education previously offered master's degree programs in London and New York, but they were planned to be phased out in 2019. In 2020, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, Christie's noted that there was a lack of racial diversity in the art world, and admitted that Christie's degree programs only exacerbated these inequities.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
However, Christie's continue to offer non-degree programmes in London, New York, Hong Kong and Amsterdam as well as online.<ref>Karen W. Arenson (20 October 2005), Getting a Master's Looking at the MastersThe New York Times.</ref> In addition they offer an Art Business Masterclass Certificate and the Luxury Masterclass Certificate.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
With Bonhams, Christie's is a shareholder in the London-based Art Loss Register, a privately owned database used by law enforcement services worldwide to trace and recover stolen art.<ref>The Art Loss Register, Ltd.: "The Art Loss Register is the world's largest database of stolen art and antiques dedicated to their recovery. Its shareholders include Christie's, Bonhams, members of the insurance industry and art trade associations. " Retrieved 27 September 2008.</ref>
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