Sotheby’s Records All-Time High $4.4 Billion in Sales for First Half of 2026
4July 16, 2026
On TuesdaySotheby’sannounced that they had logged their highest-ever numbers in sales between January and June of 2026, an astonishing $4.4 billion, representing a 58 percent increase in sales from the first half of 2025. The auction house attributed these returns, in part, to broadened engagement, some of which was fostered by their move to the Breuer Building on Madison Avenue. Within the first half of the year, their new home has drawn more than two times the visitors that the auction house’s former location had received in the same period of 2025, Sotheby’s said.
Auctionsraked in $3.4 billion of the profits, marking a 59 percent increase from the previous year. Private sales, meanwhile, hit $826 million, a 52 percent increase from last year. Sotheby’s also said that the average number of bidders per lot also increased, up to 4.9.
There have been several highlights for Sotheby’s thus far in 2026 that have contributed to this overall financial peak. Its first Old Masters season at the Breuer earned $94.8 million; a standout being a diminutive Rembrandt drawing of a lion that sold for $18 million.
Sotheby’s New York marquee season recorded a record sell-through rate of 92.5 percent and earned $908.6 million in sales. A sale of works from the collection of Robert Mnuchin which included paintings by Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline netted $173 million, reaching more than $40 million higher than was estimated.
Modern and contemporary auctions in Hong Kong fetched a combined total of $91.3 million, including a record-setting sale for the most valuable work by a woman artist ever sold in Asia with the sale of Joan Mitchell’s La Grande Vallée VII, 1983 going for $17.6 million.
In May, Sotheby’s New York parted with 98 percent of its May 19 modern evening sale offerings, which included works by Matisse, van Gogh and Russian Constructivist Varvara Stepanova. Overall, the auction earned $303.9 million in sales.
Charles F. Stewart, CEO of Sotheby’s, said in a statement, “our record performance over the past twelve months has further enhanced our profitability and capital position and our pipelines for the second half of 2026 are strong and healthy.”