James Alastair Stourton, (born 3 July 1956 in York, England) is a British art historian and a former chairman of Sotheby's UK.
[5] Stourton began his career at Sotheby's as an Old Master paintings specialist in 1979 and held many positions there, rising to the UK Chairmanship.
[citation needed] He left the auction house in 2012 to become a Senior Fellow of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.
[8] See also[9] Over the years Stourton has been a regular writer of reviews, obituaries and articles for The Daily Telegraph; The Independent; The Spectator; Apollo; The Art Newspaper; Country Life, The Literary Review and was consultant to The Economist art collecting supplement.
Stourton has written and published British Embassies: their diplomatic and architectural history (Frances Lincoln 2017)[10] and Dudley House: An Architectural and Social History Dudley House, published Swan éditeur 2019.