Hamilton Laocoön Bronze Sells for £13.6M at Sotheby's, Shattering Estimates

A rare full-scale bronze cast of the Laocoön group, created in 1817 by Auguste-Jean Marie Carbonneaux, sold for £13.6 million ($18.1 million) at Sotheby's Old Masters Evening Sale in London on July 2026. Estimated at £2-3 million, the Hamilton Laocoön sparked a 15-minute bidding war among four international bidders, becoming the second most expensive pre-modern sculpture ever auctioned and the most expensive neoclassical sculpture. The sale contributed to a total of £51.3 million for the evening, Sotheby's best London result since 2019. Other highlights included a rare historical painting by Rembrandt (£8 million) and Edwin Landseer's Scene in Braemar (£5.9 million, a record for the artist). The original Laocoön was discovered in Rome on January 14, 1506, and identified by Michelangelo and Giuliano da Sangallo as the sculpture described by Pliny the Elder. The bronze copy was commissioned by the Hamilton family and is a testament to the historical practice of replication as a means of preserving and transmitting artistic knowledge. The sale reignites debate on the value of copies in art history, a theme explored in the volume Copie, repliche ed edizioni nella storia dell'arte, edited by Arturo Galansino and published by Moebius, with contributions including Salvatore Settis.