Thomas Christie Sold at Auction Prices

THOMAS ROWLANDSON James Christie's Auction Rooms.

THOMAS ROWLANDSON James Christie's Auction Rooms. Watercolor and pen and ink on cream wove paper, circa 1810. 206x283 mm; 8 1/8x11 1/8 inches. Ex-collection Arthur Ackerman & Sons, Inc., Chicago, with the label on the frame back. Acquired Christie's, London, November 21, 2007, sale 7435, lot 195, by the current owner, with a copy of the original invoice. The current lot is an early depiction of the newly-emerging auction market. James Christie, the founder of the eponymous auction house, held his first sale on December 6, 1766 at rooms in Pall Mall, which had been formerly occupied by the print warehouse of Richard Dalton. In 1823, they relocated to their permanent home on King Street, taking advantage of London's status as the major center of the international art market. There is another watercolor of the same scene by Rowlandson in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. A similar subject was reproduced as a color aquatint after Rowlandson in Ackermann's Microcosm of Londom, 1808-10.