Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art

S otheby’s leads the global market for Victorian, Pre‑Raphaelite and early twentieth‑century British art, achieving record‑breaking results and attracting an increasingly international collector base. We hold the two highest auction prices for nineteenth‑century British pictures—Lawrence Alma‑Tadema’s The Finding of Moses ($36 million) and Antony and Cleopatra ($29 million)—and continue to set benchmarks for figurative and narrative art. Sotheby’s also holds the auction records for drawings, watercolours and oils by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, alongside exceptional results for James Tissot, Simeon Solomon, Edward Burne‑Jones and other leading artists of the era.

The enduring appeal of Victorian art is reflected in the strong demand for works by John William Waterhouse, John William Godward, Frederic Leighton and John Atkinson Grimshaw, for whom Sotheby’s has achieved all of the top ten auction prices. Recent highlights include Waterhouse’s The Siren (£3.8 million), Tissot’s Room Overlooking the Harbour (£400,000) and Alma‑Tadema’s Expectation, which soared to nearly ten times its estimate. These results underscore the category’s vitality and the continued enthusiasm of collectors for rediscovered masterpieces and fresh‑to‑market works.

Sotheby’s also dominates the market for British Impressionist art, with standout results for Philip Wilson Steer, Dame Laura Knight, Sir Alfred Munnings and Sir George Clausen. Our innovative decision in 2020 to combine Victorian art with Nineteenth Century European Paintings has expanded global visibility and introduced British art to new collectors worldwide. Supported by advanced digital platforms and a growing international audience, Sotheby’s remains the premier destination for buying and selling Victorian, Pre‑Raphaelite and British Impressionist masterpieces today.