Sotheby's marks 275th birthday with an exhibition exploring the auction house's history

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Lizzie Thomson11 March 2019

An exhibition has just opened at Sotheby’s auction house to mark the venue's 275th birthday.

The show, running in the Sotheby’s Cafe for six months, looks back at the history of the popular auction house, combining archive photos, press cuttings, catalogues and footage.

The free exhibition tells stories of the venue’s rich and colourful past, from its use as an air raid shelter during the Second World War to the individual who forgot to collect her Michelangelo piece.

It also delves into some of Sotheby’s most legendary sales, such as the original manuscript of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures Underground, which is documented in the exhibition with a newspaper cutting of the time.

Other notable works that have sold at the auction house over the years include the unpublished papers of Sir Isaac Newton and the autograph manuscript for Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Samuel Baker was the man behind the first hammer to slam in a Sotheby’s saleroom on March 11 1744. His first sale, which was a number of valuable books, came to a total of £826. Archive photographs of Baker and his famous gavel both feature in the new exhibition.

Sotheby's 275 exhibition runs from March 11 until September at 1-2 St George Street, sothebys.com

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