Science & Natural History

James has been Christie’s specialist for Science & Natural History since 2007, and head of Department since 2012.

His first auction at Christie’s was the highly successful pair of Blaeu globes sold in Amsterdam in 2008 for a world record price (€793,850). Other early highlights include the silver armillary sphere in the Yves Saint Laurent sale (€781,000) and the silver simple microscope by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek in 2009 (£313,250). James’ strong personal interest in Geology has resulted in the growth of Natural History sales over the years culminating in the world record price for a Dinosaur with STAN in October 2020 ($31,847,500). With the advent of online sales, he was the first to launch dedicated history of science and technology sales, in June 2013 an Apple-1 personal computer sold for $387,750 in the sale First Bytes: Iconic Technology from the Twentieth Century, followed by a world record price for an enigma machine in November 2014 Code Breakers: Enigmas and Other Cipher Machines for $365,000. Recent sales of note include a record price for a meteorite at auction (£525,000) in the Exceptional sale 8 July 2021 and a world record for a dinosaur skull (£500,000) in 12-26 October 2021 online auction.

A graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge, James speaks English and French; he previously worked for a UK science museum and has sat on the committee of the Scientific Instrument Society.

Julian has over a quarter-of-a-century’s experience in the antiquarian book world, and has worked for over 15 years in Christie's Books & Manuscripts department.

Julian’s first job as a Christie’s Specialist was to catalogue the Foljambe Collection of natural history. This included selling a complete subscriber’s set of John Gould’s magnificent ornithological books for £1,252,500 (April 2008). He has gone on to handle many other important natural history, science and travel books, including maps and atlases: in December 2022, he brought to market a fine coloured copy of the complete first edition of Gerard Mercator’s Atlas, 1585-1595 (£882,000). Julian has also been responsible for such rare and valuable lots as: a pair of John Russell’s extremely scarce prints of the moon (£125,000, December 2016); two copies of Mendel’s offprint on genetics and the laws of inheritance, Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden (£242,500, July 2016 and £287,250, July 2019); a beautiful example of the famous Chinese ‘Blue Map’, Complete Geographical Map of the Great Qing Dynasty (£137,500 December 2018); and Marx’s presentation copy of Das Kapital to his cousin (£344,750, December 2019).

He has also enjoyed being involved with non-book lots, and pioneered new markets for objects such as Apple-1 computers (£133,250, November 2010) and Enigma machines (£67,250, same sale), setting new world records at that time.

Over the past decade, Julian has grown and developed successful sales of photographs, maps, posters and other ephemera relating to major 20th-century geo-political events. This ties into his life-long interest with TE Lawrence.

Julian also has a fascination with paleontology, geology and the earth sciences, and has helped catalogue a major private collection on the subject.