Biography
Julian joined Sotheby's in 2007 after completing a Masters degree in History and History of Art at Edinburgh University. Initially a specialist in what was then the Early British Paintings department, Julian joined the Old Masters team in 2010 and works with collectors across a range of categories and periods. However, he retains a particular expertise in British art from the sixteenth to early nineteenth centuries, a market he has developed a deep understanding for and established relationships with collectors worldwide. He travels extensively within the UK and North America, as well as further afield, and has been instrumental in helping to establish Sotheby’s dominance in this area.
Particular highlights have included the sale of a number of major masterpieces by J.M.W. Turner, particularly the artist’s Ehrenbreitstein, which sold for £18.5 million in 2017; as well as Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino in 2010 and Rome, from Mount Aventine in 2014, which consecutively set auction the world record prices for the artist (at £29.7 and £30.3 million respectively). The latter remains not only the current record for Turner, but the highest price for any pre-20th Century British work of art sold at auction. Julian was also responsible for the sale of Van Dyck’s Self Portrait from the collection of the Earl of Jersey, now in the National Portrait Gallery, London, which established a new world record for the artist in December 2009, when it sold for £8.3 million. In his time at Sotheby’s he has set record prices for many British artists, including Thomas Gainsborough, George Stubbs, Johann Zoffany, Joseph Wright of Derby, William Dobson, George Romney and Richard Parkes Bonington, among others.
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