The House of Stories
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A new book and podcast open the doors to Sotheby's auction house and the stories behind some of the most extraordinary objects ever to go under the hammer.
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.
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 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.
Icons: 100 Extraordinary Objects is available from 19th May wherever good books are sold.