Parcours des Mondes

Max Rutherston’s career began in impressionist and modern art when he joined Sotheby’s in 1979. In 1990 he discovered Japan, and in 1992 he devoted a year to the study of the Japanese language before joining the Japanese art department at Sotheby’s, which he became director of in 1997. He developed an interest in netsuke in 2002 after he had been invited to manage Sydney L. Moss Ltd., London’s oldest Asian art gallery. In 2010, he formed the partnership of Rutherston & Bandini Ltd., a company that quickly established itself as one of the most important in the world for netsuke and lacquer works. For the past three years, he has continued to develop the market for these objects as Max Rutherston Ltd.