Auction and Sales Research

The Library maintains complete subscription to physical copies of auction catalogues from Sotheby's New York, Christie's New York, and Phillips New York for the last five years.

Particularly important sales catalogues are held in perpetuity and catalogued as books, and shelved with them in the general stacks. These catalogues can be found in our Library Catalogue. Particularly rare or valuable sales catalogues are stored in the Head Librarian's office and are available for consultation by request.

If you have a the name and date of sale, but we do not have the catalogue in our library, and it is not available online, we have access to the SCIPIO Database which will lead you to libraries that have the catalogue. If it is in New York we can write you a referral if the library is not open to the public.

Since the COVID-19 Pandemic began, major auction houses have curtailed the production of most print auction catalogues. They have, however, continued to provide similar catalogues in digital form. We have captured these .pdf files to allow students and researchers access to these vital records of sales, which preserve much important information that cannot be found elsewhere.

This repository is a work in progress. We are beginning with born digtial catalgoues from Sotheby's, Christie's, Bonhams, Heritage, Hindman, Swann, and Wright and expanding to other important auction houses that are producing these digital catalogues. Catalogues are arranged in reverse chronological order, with most recent catalogues first. Some files are too large to be contained in one .pdf, so are being split into multiple parts. Location, date, and sale number are being provided when available. 

To access these Catalogues, click here: https://sia.libguides.com/DigitalAuctionCatalogues

You will be prompted for a password. Please ask Librarians for password.