Following hard on the heels of the news that Werner Schmalenbach, former Director of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, is to serve on the board of Sotheby-Holding Inc., the auction house has announced the opening of a fourth Swiss branch. The new Basel office opened on 18 January, joining Geneva, Zürich and Lugano as Sotheby’s four key Swiss locations. It is to be headed by Ruedi Staechelin, grandson of the famous Basel art collector and director of the Rudolf Staechelin Foundation that owns the paintings exhibited in Basel’s Kunstmuseum, and by the contemporary art historian Ursula Simonius-Buhlmann. It should be noted here that the Staechelin Foundation sold a Gauguin in November 1989 for $11 million (£5.6 million) - through Sotheby’s.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Sotheby’s now in Basel'