Islamic Art

Sotheby’s first sold Qur’ans and manuscripts nearly three centuries ago – in 1755, as part of the library of an Oxford academic offered at auction. Today, London’s ‘Islamic Week’ (held biannually in April and October) is the focal point in the Islamic art diary, attracting collectors, curators and connoisseurs from across the globe. The department’s sales offer a spectrum of classical arts from the Middle East and wider Islamic World, featuring a range of manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and Turkish as well as miniatures, paintings, ceramics, metalwork, arms and armour, glass, jewellery and many other fine decorative objects.

Sotheby’s has been entrusted with the most important private collections of Islamic and Indian art since the inception of the auction category on the market. This includes The Kevorkian Foundation Collection (1967-83); The Bachofen von Echt Collection of Indian Painting (1992); The British Rail Pension Fund Collection (1994 & 1996); The Aryeh Family Collection (1999); The Collection of the Berkeley Trust (2004); A Princely Collection (2010); The Stuart Cary Welch Collection (Parts One & Two, April/May 2011); The Sven Gahlin Collection (2015), The Khosrovani-Diba Collection (2016); The Howard Hodgkin Collection (2017); The Shakerine Collection (2019); In an Indian Garden: The Carlton Rochell Collection of Company School Paintings (2021) and the Edith and Stuart Cary Welch Collection (2023). Sotheby’s Islamic Art Department holds the record for any Islamic work on paper ever sold: a folio from the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp, sold for £8.1 million in 2022. Other records include an exceptional Umayyad sculpture of a bronze buck sold for £4.2m in October 2024, and a highly important blue and white Iznik pottery charger sold for £5.4 million in 2018.

Our international team is based in London and includes four highly experienced specialists who work in collaboration with Sotheby’s experts in America, Europe, The Middle East and India. In addition to the pre-sale viewings held in our London galleries, the department aims to give collectors around world the opportunity to view the works in person during travelling exhibitions in New York and Dubai.