MacDougall's is a privately owned international

auction house An auction house is a business establishment that facilitates the buying and selling of assets, such as works of art and collectibles. Overview The auction house is the physical facility where the objects are catalogued, displayed, and presented ...

based in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

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. Founded in 2004, it is one of Britain's youngest, but fastest growing auction houses.Daily Telegraph 23 Feb 2010
With around 20 million pounds per year in auction sales, MacDougall's is now the 5th or 6th largest auction house in Britain, and consistently one of the three largest in the world for its speciality: Russian Art. The firm has its salerooms in

and representatives in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, and

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

.Company Website
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History

As it held its first auction in November 2004, the firm is relatively young. However, with most of the staff speaking Russian, with leading art experts based in Russia, and given the founders' experience as Russian Art collectors, it has been able to exploit this specialist niche and grow quickly. Two seasons of Russian Art Sales in London - June and December - dominate the world market for Russian Art, with specialised sales at

Sotheby's Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...

, MacDougall's and

Bonham's Bonhams is a privately owned international auction house and one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. It was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son & Neale. This brought tog ...

. In 2008 MacDougall's reached second place behind Sotheby's, while in December 2009, it outsold all three competitors in Russian paintings. In June 2010, MacDougall's sold 900,000 pounds' worth of

icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic Church, Catholic, and Lutheranism, Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, mother of ...

s, the largest icon sale of the year, and held its inaugural auction of Russian Works on Paper, the world's first specialist sale in this sector, raising over 1.5m pounds."Battling Russian Billionaires Push London Art Auctions Up 90%", Bloomberg, June 11 2010
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Notes

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Sources

"Battling Russian Billionaires Push London Art Auctions Up 90%", Bloomberg, June 11, 2010 "Profile: MacDougall's Art Auctions, Specialists in the Midas Touch", Daily Telegraph, 23 February 2010 "Russian Art Snapped Up in $65.6 Million Auction, Best in a Year Share Business" Bloomberg Dec. 4 2010 "The art market: Street cred for Caro", Financial Times, November 28, 2009 "MacDougall's", Artchronica (Moscow, in Russian), November 2009 "MacDougall's", Expert (Kiev, in Russian), 4 Oct 2010

External links

MacDougall's website
London auction houses Russian art British companies established in 2004 Retail companies established in 2004