Freeman's

Freeman’s, the oldest auction house in the US, was founded as a family run business in 1805 with headquarters in Philadelphia.

It remained in the hands of the Freeman family for six generations until a management buyout in 2016 and established a marketing alliance with Lyon & Turnbull in the UK.

The company later merged with fellow US saleroom Hindman to form Freeman's Hindman with the first sales under the new brand held in early 2024.


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Bach portrait unearthed in Alabama makes $100,000 in Philadelphia

01 November 2012

Debate has long surrounded the well-known portrait of composer Johann Sebastian Bach by German court painter and official Leipzig portraitist Elias Gottlob Haussmann (1695-1774).

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Preparing for bidding battles as iconic US Naval flags come to auction

20 February 2012

ON April 30, Philadelphia auctioneers Freeman’s will sell flags from the U.S. Navy’s most revered ship, the Constitution.

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NY series shows Chinese art continuing to dominate

27 September 2011

The major houses’ latest New York Asian series highlighted the dominance of the Chinese art market.

Lehman Brothers sale rescheduled

15 February 2010

FOLLOWING the severe winter weather that has struck the East Coast of the US, Freemans of Philadelphia chose to postpone for a week the sale of the Lehman Brothers Collection Part II.

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Underrated Fabergé soars in Philadelphia

20 October 2008

Reports of the vast sums of money lost by some Russian oligarchs in the recent financial crisis did not appear to hamper enthusiasm for a collection of Russian cloisonné sold at Freeman’s in Philadelphia on October 8.

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Garzoni on mental illness

22 June 2004

TOP read in a May 20 sale held by Freemans of Philadelphia was one of 90 sets of the 37-vol. ‘Memorial’ edition of the writings of Mark Twain published by Harpers in 1929, which, in original three-quarter crushed green levant morocco gilt and marbled boards, sold at $12,000 (£6820).

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Fraktur record well and truly broken by $330,000 nightingale

16 June 2004

DECORATED manuscripts known as fraktur, made in various parts of America but primarily associated with Pennsylvania’s German communities, are something very little known in Britain, but on the home auction scene they are big money spinners indeed, as the example from an April 24 Americana sale held by Freemans of Philadelphia shows.

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Solon and sampler in spring special

16 June 2004

DECORATIVE pâte-sur-pâte has been selling well recently and an example of the work produced by Louis Marc Emmanuel Solon for Mintons was featured on the cover of the catalogue produced by Freemans of Philadelphia for their March 20-21 sale of English and Continental furniture and works of art, and it duly produced one of this special Spring sale’s better results.

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8 Savoys

10 June 2004

SOLD for $1300 (£730) in a May 20 sale held by Freemans of Philadelphia was a set in original wrappers of all eight issues of The Savoy (1896) with its cover designs and other illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley.

Impressions of Rural America

26 July 2002

USA: The works of two American impressionists, Fern Isabel Coppedge (1888-1951) and Edward Henry Potthast (1857-1927), both of whom were plein air painters whose works were admired for their fresh and colourful imagery, are featured here, together with a sample of the folksier treatment of rural America by Paul Seifert, a German fruit and vegetable farmer who took to painting as a lucrative sideline.

Unique archive unmasked as a clever forgery

27 May 2002

At the eleventh hour, manuscripts purporting to be undiscovered music and poems by “America’s first native-born composer” were withdrawn from ,b>Freeman’s of Philadelphia May 16 books and manuscripts sale. Why? Evidence had surfaced that the archive was a sophisticated forgery.

Are you sitting on a fortune?

01 June 1999

US: IF UK dealers need a reminder as to why their American counterparts are frantically plundering these shores for fine English examples of their own 18th century copies, then they should look no further than the premium inclusive $336,000 (£213,000) paid by an American private collector for this Queen Anne-style Philadelphia walnut side chair at Freeman’s of Philadelphia on April 16.

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