“The sales catalogues, the first of which date back to 1766, are an invaluable resource for specialists. Faced with this decision to close, they expressed their anger and their incomprehension.
The prestigious auction house has decided to end access to its archives due to staff lay-offs.
“As a courtesy, Christie’s has given free access to its archives for research purposes,” said a spokesperson for the auction house, as reported by the Art Newspaper. “However, the archives team has been reduced and can now only meet the needs of our own specialist teams”.
Inestimable resource…
“The auction house has responded to the criticism and didn’t sound very certain about a possible reopening. Dirk Bool, President of Christie’s in Europe, Middle East, Russia and India, said: “Unfortunately, the entire King Street building has been closed to the public due to the health crisis. Rest assured that we will continue to maintain our records in an appropriate and accessible manner. We will also explore ways to expand access to these archives in the future”.
thierry Ehrmann, President and Founder of Artmarket.com and its Artprice department: “The answer for Art Professionals, Auction Houses, Experts, Galleries, Museums and Collectors is the archives department of Artprice by Artmarket, a global player in the Art Market and world leader in art price databases and Art Market indices.”
Artprices’ archive “Artprice Images®” is absolutely unique…
It allows unlimited access to the largest Art Market archive in the world… a library consisting of 180 million images and engravings of artworks from 1700 to today, commented by our historians, econometricians and writers, and covering more than 770,000 artists.
This archive, which according to the specialized press worldwide, is unique in the world, consists of more than 750,000 manuscripts and art catalogues from more than 6,300 auction houses, carefully preserved in standardized archive blocks and, according to a former French Minister of Culture, it constitutes “a State mission, accomplished by a private company which managed, by raising capital, to do what the State should have done…”
The Artprice archive – covering the art market from 1700 to the present day – has been built up since 1987 by the selective acquisition on all continents of a multitude of archives and/or companies (Sound View Press, Frank Van Wilder, Mayer, Bayer USA, Hippolyte Mireur etc. ..).
It is the fundamental core of the services offered by Artprice by Artmarket databases with more than 30 million art market indices and sales results.
Artmarket and its Artprice department was founded in 1997 by its CEO, thierry Ehrmann. Artmarket and its Artprice department is controlled by Groupe Serveur, created in 1987.
Artmarket is a global player in the Art Market with, among other structures, its Artprice department, world leader in the accumulation, management and exploitation of historical and current art market information in databanks containing over 30 million indices and auction results, covering more than 770,000 artists.
Artprice Images® allows unlimited access to the largest Art Market image bank in the world: no less than 180 million digital images of photographs or engraved reproductions of artworks from 1700 to the present day, commented by our art historians.
Artmarket with its Artprice department accumulates data on a permanent basis from 6300 Auction Houses and produces key Art Market information for the main press and media agencies (7,200 publications). Its 4.5 million ‘members log in’ users have access to ads posted by other members, a network that today represents the leading Global Standardized Marketplace® to buy and sell artworks at a fixed or bid price (auctions regulated by paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article L 321.3 of France’s Commercial Code).
Artmarket with its Artprice department, has been awarded the State label “Innovative Company” by the Public Investment Bank (BPI) (for the second time in November 2018 for a new period of 3 years) which is supporting the company in its project to consolidate its position as a global player in the market art.
Artprice by Artmarket’s 2019 Global Art Market Report published in February 2020 :
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
