/sothebys/lots/search

POST /api/sothebys/lots/search

Price: 20 credits

Search Sotheby's lots, buy-now items and private-sale items, available or past, by keyword, department, sale location, auction format, artist, price and date. Past lots carry the realized sale price and sold status where Sotheby's publishes them, with estimate, auction title and sale date.

How to use it

Search Sotheby's objects; set status=past with types=[lot] for auction results with sale_price. Pass a lot's id to sothebys/lots and a buy-now or private-sale item's id to sothebys/shop/items.

Parameters

• access-token string required

Request body

• timeout integer — Max scrapping execution timeout (in seconds) (default: 300; min: 20; max: 1500)
• keyword string nullable — Search text (examples: "picasso"; minLength: 1)
• status string — available keeps items open for sale, past keeps sold or closed lots (default: "all"; one of: "all", "available", "past")
• types array — Kinds of item to include; empty means all (default: []; one of: "lot", "buy_now", "private_sale"; examples: ["lot"])
• departments array — Sotheby's departments (default: []; one of: "19th Century European Paintings", "19th Century Furniture & Sculpture", "20th Century Design", "Aboriginal Art", "African & Oceanic Art", "African Modern & Contemporary Art", "American Art", "American Furniture, Decorative Art & Folk Art", "Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art", "Books & Manuscripts", "British Paintings 1550-1850", "British Watercolours & Drawings 1550-1850", "Chinese Export Porcelain", "Chinese Paintings – Classical", "Chinese Paintings – Modern", "Chinese Works of Art", "Clocks & Barometers", "Collectibles", "Contemporary Arab, Iranian & Turkish Art", "Contemporary Art", "Contemporary Asian Art", "Contemporary Latin American Art", "Contemporary NFT", "Digital Art", "English Furniture", "European Ceramics", "European Ceramics & Glass", "European Sculpture & Works of Art", "French & Continental Furniture", "Gold Boxes & Objects of Vertu", "Handbags & Fashion", "House Sales & Private Collections", "Impressionist & Modern Art", "Indian & Himalayan Art", "Indian & South Asian Modern & Contemporary Art", "Indian, Himalayan & Southeast Asian Art", "Islamic & Indian Art", "Islamic Art", "Japanese Art", "Jewelry", "Latin American Art", "Luxury Collectibles", "Modern & Contemporary Middle East", "Modern & Contemporary Southeast Asian Art", "Modern Art | Asia", "Modern British & Irish Art", "Objects of Vertu", "Old Master Drawings", "Old Master Paintings", "Photographs", "Popular Culture", "Pre-Columbian Art", "Prints", "Rugs & Carpets", "Russian Art", "Science", "Silver", "Sneakers NFT", "Sneakers, Sports Memorabilia & Modern Collectibles", "Streetwear & Modern Collectibles", "Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art", "Watches", "Whisky & Spirits", "Wine", "Wine & Spirits"; examples: ["Prints"])
• locations array — Sale locations (default: []; one of: "Abu Dhabi", "Amsterdam", "Aspen", "Beaune", "Bordeaux", "CH", "Chatsworth", "Chicago", "Cologne", "Diriyah", "Dubai", "Edinburgh", "FR", "GB", "Geneva", "HK", "Hong Kong", "Las Vegas", "London", "Los Angeles", "Miami", "Milan", "Monaco", "Mumbai", "Munich", "Napa", "New York", "Palm Beach", "Paris", "Riyadh", "Shanghai", "Singapore", "US", "Zurich"; examples: ["New York","Paris"])
• auction_types array — Auction formats (default: []; one of: "Legacy Auction", "Main Sales", "Online Auctions", "Selling Exhibitions", "Single Owner Sales", "S|2 Exhibitions", "Time based sales"; examples: ["Main Sales"])
• artists array — Artist names as Sotheby's writes them (default: []; examples: ["Pablo Picasso"])
• min_price number nullable — Lowest low estimate or list price, in the item's own currency (min: 0)
• max_price number nullable — Highest low estimate or list price, in the item's own currency (min: 0)
• date_from string nullable — Earliest sale or closing date (format: date; examples: "2020-01-01")
• date_to string nullable — Latest sale or closing date (format: date; examples: "2020-12-31")
• count integer required — Max number of results (min: 1; max: 1000)

Response

• @type string (default: "SothebysSearchItem")
• id string required
• item_type string nullable
• url string nullable
• alias string nullable
• heading string nullable
• artist_name string nullable
• attribution string nullable
• artists array (default: [])
• artist_ids array (default: [])
• brands array (default: [])
• description string nullable
• details string nullable
• text string nullable
• lot_number string nullable
• sale_number string nullable
• item_code string nullable
• sku string nullable
• series string nullable
• auction_title string nullable
• auction_details string nullable
• auction_type string nullable
• auction_locations array (default: [])
• locations array (default: [])
• departments array (default: [])
• divisions array (default: [])
• regions array (default: [])
• categories array (default: [])
• tags array (default: [])
• is_available boolean nullable
• sold_status string nullable
• sale_price number nullable
• hammer_price number nullable
• estimate_low number nullable
• estimate_high number nullable
• estimate_currency string nullable
• price number nullable
• currency string nullable
• sales_channel string nullable
• ships_from_country string nullable
• starts_at integer nullable
• ends_at integer nullable
• updated_at integer nullable
• image string nullable
• landscape_image string nullable
• portrait_image string nullable
• image_caption string nullable
• latitude number nullable
• longitude number nullable

Errors

• 422 — The request body did not validate Check the fields against this schema. A URN with the wrong prefix is the most common cause.
• 408 — The request ran past its time limit Raise `timeout` in the request body, up to the maximum this endpoint documents. Lowering `count` or turning off the `with_*` flags also helps, because less work finishes sooner.
• 412 — The entity was not found, or a precondition failed Retrying will not help: either the entity does not exist, or the input points at a different one.
• 429 — Too many requests: a rate limit or a usage window is exhausted When the response carries an X-Retry-After header, wait that many seconds and retry: the same number is in the body as `detail.retry_after`, and the limit clears once that window passes. The message in the body names the limit that was hit.
• 500 — Something broke on our side Retrying will not help. If it keeps happening, send us the X-Request-ID from the response headers.
• 529 — Rate limit reached, or the endpoint is overloaded Wait at least 30 seconds, then retry.

Response headers

• X-Error — Error message text (present only on error)
• X-Request-ID — Unique request identifier
• X-Execution-Time — Execution time in seconds
• X-Result-Count — How many records the body carries. 0 means an empty result, which is a normal answer and not by itself an error. A non-zero count can come back together with X-Error when the failure happened partway through — read this header and X-Error independently.
• X-Total-Available-Results — How many records exist for this query, when the endpoint can say. On a `dry_run` request this is the answer and the body is empty. It saturates: the endpoint's documented maximum means 'at least that many', any smaller number is exact.
• X-Warning — Present when the request body carried keys this endpoint does not document. They were ignored, so any filter you meant to apply through them did not apply. Check the spelling against this schema and retry.
• X-Retry-After — Seconds to wait before retrying. Present only on 429.