Mouton Rothschild auction marks 100 years of artist labels
Sotheby's London will sell more than 350 lots from the Pauillac first growth's own cellars on 4 February 2027, from 1924 bottles to a full barrel of the 2025 vintage.
The Mouton Rothschild auction that Sotheby's will hold in London on 4 February 2027 is built around one anniversary: a century since Jean Carlu designed the first artist label, for the 1924 vintage of the Pauillac first growth. The sale is estimated at £1.9-3.1 million.
Titled “Château Mouton Rothschild: Paintings for the Labels, 100th Anniversary Commemorative Release”, it gathers more than 350 lots taken directly from the château's cellars, according to the estate and the auction house. The catalogue runs in five chapters, from contemporary vintages (2000-2023) back to an “origins and legacy” chapter covering 1922 to 1999.
What the Mouton Rothschild auction offers
A century of labels is being priced as one collection, not vintage by vintage.
The top single lot is a vertical of 77 bottles and one magnum spanning 1924 to 2024, estimated at £150,000-300,000. A full barrel of the 2025 vintage, equivalent to 300 bottles and deliverable from early 2028, carries an estimate of £75,000-150,000. A bottle of the 1945, the year the label became an annual commission, is listed at £18,000-24,000, and a magnum at £38,000-50,000.
The 2024 vintage, whose label closes the century, appears as a super lot estimated at £20,000-40,000, although its artwork will only be unveiled on 1 December 2026. The 2023 label, by the Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, was revealed in December 2025. Selected lots include an invitation to a centenary gala dinner at the château on 12 June 2027.
Half of the proceeds from the signed large formats, imperials with labels by Anish Kapoor, Gerhard Richter and Olafur Eliasson, will go to Médecins Sans Frontières. Other lots support the Musée Picasso in Paris, the Musée Soulages in Rodez, MoMA in New York and the Palace of Versailles.
A label series priced as a collection
Philippe Sereys de Rothschild, chief executive of Baron Philippe de Rothschild, called the sale “a consecration of the deep bond between Château Mouton Rothschild and art”. Nick Pegna, Sotheby's global head of wine and spirits, described it as “a once-in-a-generation opportunity” for collectors.
Carlu's 1924 design stayed an isolated experiment for two decades. Baron Philippe de Rothschild revived the idea in 1945, and every vintage since has carried a commissioned work, by names ranging from Braque, Miró and Chagall to Picasso, Warhol and Peter Doig. The artists are paid in cases of wine rather than fees, and the original paintings hang in the château's own exhibition rooms, which are open to visitors.
The estate has worked with Sotheby's before, on ex-cellar sales and on single charity lots tied to the annual label reveal. This time the series is being priced as a whole rather than one vintage at a time, and the sale lands as Bordeaux absorbs a 2026 harvest brought forward by heat.
