Author: Bieke Peeters

Christie’s Brussels was founded 50 years ago on the enduring foundations, principles and values that James Christie established and put into practice for his auction house 260 years ago.

Over the past five decades, Christie’s Brussels has been commissioned to auction many important Belgian private and corporate collections.

Recently, in March 2026, Christie’s Brussels auctioned works from the collection of Roger and Josette Vanthournout. A Belgian couple whose shared passion for art shaped their collecting over more than sixty years. Roger, trained in design and decoration, approached art with an architect’s eye; Josette, a painter with a refined sense of colour and composition, brought an artist’s sensitivity to every purchase. Together, they embodied the Belgian tradition of openness to the outside world – a spirit rooted in the country’s history as a cultural and commercial crossroads. Their taste was constantly evolving: early interests in Chinese ceramics and Flemish Expressionism gave way to Surrealism, Minimalism and leading movements in post-war European and American art.

Parts of the Proximus corporate collection – a selection of 70 works – were sold in 2024, and the proceeds were used to fund further acquisitions, with a particular focus on digital art and young artists at the start of their careers.

In 2022, the Le Jeune collection went under the hammer, including a magnificent painting by Luc Tuymans, which now hangs at La Bourse du Commerce in Paris, home to the Pinault collection. The Pinault family has owned Christie’s since 1998.

In early 2016, part of the art collection belonging to the renowned Belgian minimalist architect Marc Corbiau was sold at Christie’s in London. He had built up an impressive art collection of international standing, featuring works by renowned artists such as Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana, Donald Judd, Robert Mangold, Richard Serra, Frank Stella and Jan Schoonhoven.

In 1999, Stéphane Janssen’s collection of contemporary art was auctioned. Many of the works on offer had previously been on display at the Louisiana Museum in Denmark, which had dedicated the very first exhibition to this major private collection in 1986. Janssen bought his first work of art in 1952, at the age of 16, in Oscar Dominguez’s studio in the south of France for a sum equivalent to €25 today. When his partner died in 1993, Stéphane Janssen could no longer continue collecting in the same way; it made him too sad, which resulted in the sale of many works. He then turned his attention to photography and built up an impressive new collection.

In 1803, James Christie’s son, James Christie II (1773–1831), took over the running of the business, and in 1823 he moved Christie’s head office to 8 King Street, where it has been based ever since. The longest house auction in history took place in 1848 at Stowe House, when the the 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos had spectacularly increased his inherited debts until the annual interest payments exceeded his income; he commissioned Christie’s to hold a 40-day auction of his property.

In Belgium, Christie’s Brussels was commissioned by Paul de Grande when he sold items from his Snellegem Castle in 1995. Two years later, a house auction was held at Rumbeke Castle, one of the oldest Renaissance castles in Belgium.

In 2004, Christie’s Brussels organised the most recent estate sale in Belgium at Van’s-Gravenwezel Castle, when Axel Vervoordt selected 1,000 items from his incredible collection for the auction. Most estate sales are prompted by a move. In Axel Vervoordt’s case, the opposite was true. After the auction, which was more like a huge open-house festival at the château, he remained an antiquarian through and through.