Phillips — The Younger of the Major Auction Houses
Phillips — The Younger of the Major Auction Houses
London-founded saleroom with a design-led jewellery programme across New York, Geneva, Hong Kong, and London
Phillips is an international auction house founded in London in 1796 by Harry Phillips, a former clerk to James Christie, and now operating salerooms in New York, Geneva, Hong Kong, and London with smaller representative offices elsewhere. Among the international houses competing for the top end of the jewellery market, Phillips is the youngest in its present form: the modern Phillips dates effectively from a series of restructurings between the late 1990s and the early 2010s, after which it was repositioned as a design-led, contemporary-leaning competitor to Christie's and Sotheby's. The jewellery department reflects that positioning, with a programme that emphasises signed twentieth- and twenty-first-century pieces alongside important coloured stones and diamonds.
History
Harry Phillips opened his own rooms in London in 1796 after years with Christie's, and the firm conducted a steady business in fine art, decorative arts, and jewellery through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Bonhams acquired the British Phillips operation in 2001, while the international Phillips name was retained for the contemporary art and design business that had been built up under Bernard Arnault's ownership. After further changes of ownership and management, Phillips emerged in its current form as a focused contemporary art, design, watch, and jewellery house.
Jewellery programme
Phillips conducts regular jewellery sales in New York, Geneva, and Hong Kong, with London supporting the international programme. The house has built a reputation for younger collectors and design-led material — JAR, Suzanne Belperron, Verdura, contemporary studio designers — alongside the traditional core of signed Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Bulgari, and Boucheron pieces and important coloured stones. Phillips's jewellery results have been competitive with Christie's and Sotheby's at the top end of the market for signed twentieth-century pieces.
Position in the market
For consigning a piece, the choice between Phillips and the larger houses is most often a question of audience. Phillips's collector base skews younger, more design-oriented, and more international than the historical Christie's and Sotheby's bases, and signed contemporary jewellery and design-led twentieth-century material can do well there. For very fine coloured stones — Burmese ruby, Kashmir sapphire, Colombian emerald — the larger Geneva sales at Christie's and Sotheby's still command the deepest pools of buyers, though Phillips Geneva has been narrowing the gap.
Online and live sale model
Phillips conducts both live evening and day sales and a growing online programme, with Jewels Online sales serving the lower and mid-market and live sales reserved for the higher consignments. Online bidding is integrated across all sale formats, and phone bidding remains standard for the live evening sales.
In the trade
Auction results published by Phillips are part of the standard set of comparables consulted by dealers, valuers, and collectors. The house's archive — see the dedicated entry on the Phillips auction archive — is searchable online and is particularly useful for signed twentieth-century jewellery, where Phillips has unusually strong market presence.