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On Tuesday 21st April our Year 9 Harris Experience cohort went to one of the world’s most prestigious auction houses; Christie’s.  Our tour guide for the day was Nick Martineau, Director of Prints and a Specialist in Topographical pictures. He led our group on a gallery walk showing us a collection of prints they were putting up for auction and treated us to a highly informative talk on the “potted history” of the auction house and its founder James Christie. After learning more about the function of the auction house, we were able to take our place on the auctioneer’s podium and enact a brief bidding war over a £6,000 painting! We were lucky enough to be able to walk around an exhibition of Islamic art and see how cultural differences are expressed through different mediums; a few students were particularly taken with three intricate pen cases from Persia. Our penultimate stop was to an exhibition that is currently being set-up, we were able to see all of the planning and detail that goes in to setting up and exhibition room; from the carpets, to the artefacts themselves. This was really special because the public don’t usually get to see behind the scenes! The final stop on the tour was the Natural History exhibition that was on display at the front of the auction house. We got to look at, touch and talk to experts about fossilized fish, gem stones, cipher machines, world maps with star cages and tapestries. By far the most exciting things in the exhibition were the Elephant Bird’s egg and the REAL dinosaur bone! Being able to get so close to and really interact with these artefacts was such an incredible experience and one that I hope we will all have again! The students were so excited by what they had seen and can’t wait to go back to Christie’s to auction off their own piece of work in the coming months.