Phillips — From Cockspur Street to the Auction Rostrum
Phillips — From Cockspur Street to the Auction Rostrum
The London name that became a fine-jewellery auction house
Phillips is a British auction house with deep roots in the London art and jewellery trades, founded by Harry Phillips in 1796 after he left Christie's, where he had served as senior clerk. Through more than two centuries of mergers, rebrandings, and ownership changes, the Phillips name has remained associated with the higher end of the secondary market for jewellery, watches, and design objects. The modern Phillips, owned since 2008 by the Russian-founded Mercury Group, operates salerooms in London, New York, Hong Kong, and Geneva and competes with Christie's, Sotheby's, and Bonhams for consignments of important coloured stones, signed jewellery, and modern and contemporary design.
From Harry Phillips to Phillips de Pury
Harry Phillips opened his first saleroom on New Bond Street in 1796 and quickly built a reputation among collectors and the European aristocracy. The firm passed to his son and grandson and conducted significant nineteenth-century sales of paintings, books, decorative arts, and jewellery. By the late twentieth century, after a long period as Phillips Son & Neale, the business had been absorbed into the Bonhams group and then disentangled again. In 1999 the firm was acquired by the French luxury group LVMH, recast as Phillips, de Pury & Luxembourg under the leadership of dealer Simon de Pury, and pivoted aggressively toward modern and contemporary art and design. Mercury Group bought a controlling interest in 2008 and gradually returned the house to a streamlined Phillips brand.
The jewellery and watches business
Phillips' jewellery department, currently led by senior specialists in Geneva, London, Hong Kong, and New York, focuses on signed period and contemporary pieces from JAR, Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Bulgari, Harry Winston, and the major Italian houses, alongside coloured-stone single-stone lots from significant origins. Geneva sales held in May and November coincide with the Christie's and Sotheby's calendars and form one of the three principal Swiss auction weeks for fine jewellery.
The watch department, built by senior specialist Aurel Bacs after he joined from Christie's in 2014, became one of the dominant forces in the international watch auction market within a few seasons. Phillips watch sales in Geneva and Hong Kong have set records for vintage Patek Philippe, Rolex, and independent watchmakers, and the watch business is the principal driver of the auction house's category leadership in collectible horology.
How Phillips fits in the trade
Phillips is the smallest of the four major international houses by jewellery turnover, sitting behind Christie's, Sotheby's, and the longer-established Bonhams in jewellery volume but ahead of regional competitors in selectivity. The house's strategy in jewellery favours fewer, higher-quality lots over thick catalogues of commercial material — a positioning consistent with its watch and contemporary art programmes. Consignors choose Phillips for jewellery that benefits from a curated catalogue, strong design narrative, and access to the modern-luxury collector base the house cultivates through its watch and contemporary art sales.
Buyers' premiums and seller's commissions broadly track the rest of the international auction market, with Phillips occasionally negotiating preferential terms for marquee consignments. As with all auction venues, the catalogue description, laboratory reports, and provenance documentation drive value at the rostrum: a fine ruby with a Gübelin or SSEF report and an unbroken provenance trail will achieve a different level than the same stone consigned without paperwork.
Notable jewellery sales
Phillips Geneva and New York jewellery sales have included important Kashmir sapphires, Burmese pigeon's-blood rubies, Colombian emeralds with old-mine provenance, and signed pieces from the principal twentieth-century maisons. The catalogue prose tends toward the design-historical, with attention to maker, period, and design context as well as the gemmological essentials.
Watch sales under Aurel Bacs have included world-record results for Paul Newman's own Rolex Daytona and for major Patek Philippe complications, raising the house's overall profile and indirectly benefiting the jewellery side through cross-pollination of clients.
Phillips and the older Phillips of Cockspur Street
The auction house Phillips should not be confused with the nineteenth-century jewellery firm Robert Phillips of Cockspur Street, an entirely separate London business that produced archaeological-revival jewellery in the mid-Victorian period. The two share only the surname and a London address and have no commercial connection.
In the trade
For consignors with a single fine stone, a signed period jewel, or a small collection of important contemporary pieces, Phillips is one of the four houses worth approaching for valuation and pre-sale advice. The consignment process begins with a private appointment at a Phillips office, after which the specialists will issue an estimate range and propose a sale and reserve. For buyers, Phillips catalogues and viewing days are part of the standard circuit alongside Christie's, Sotheby's, and Bonhams during the Geneva and New York auction weeks.