Sporting & Wildlife Art

John Stainton is Deputy Chairman of Christie’s Old Master Paintings department. John joined the company in 1990 after completing a two-year diploma at Christie's Education, and was appointed Head of Department, British Pictures 1500-1850, in 1994. In 2007 John became an International Director of the merged Old Master & British Paintings department.

Major works which John has worked closely on in recent years include J.M.W. Turner’s Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio, Venice (2006; US$35.8M), George Stubbs’ Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath (2011; £22.4M), and John Constable’s The Lock (2012; £22.4M), each representing world record prices. John also handles major private and institutional sales.

While British Painting – a field whose market Christie’s consistently dominates – remains a passion, John works across all schools of European Old Masters. In 2014 John curated the highly successful ‘Art of the Horse’ private selling exhibition which toured to Shanghai and Hong Kong, comprising Asian and Western works of art, from Antiquity to the present day. John leads the Old Master department’s work in Asia.

Sarah Reynolds joined Christie’s in 2008, starting in the British Watercolours & Drawings and Maritime Art departments. Since 2013 she has combined Maritime Art with Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art, and Sporting & Wildlife Art, and she is responsible for sourcing, cataloguing and promoting works in these categories. In 2018 Sarah was appointed Head of Sale for Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art, and she also joined the ranks of Christie’s auctioneers.

Since starting at Christie's Sarah has contributed to the success of the department’s many and varied sales, including single owner collections such as The B.J. Eastwood Collection: Important Sporting and Irish Pictures (July 2021) and The Joe Setton Collection: Pre-Raphaelites to Last Romantics (December 2020). She has also been involved in setting several new world records in Maritime, Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art and was instrumental in the success of the inaugural British Impressionism sales in November 2017. Sarah launched the Christie’s Lates programme at Christie’s South Kensington in March 2015, and has been an integral part of the team that transitioned the successful format to King Street in 2017. Sarah is a graduate from St. Peter’s College, Oxford and the Courtauld Institute, London. Her main interests include 18th century marine paintings, Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist paintings, and she has a particular fondness for portraiture.