In early 2012, Ryan Mayberry, the son of Winnipeg gallery owner Bill Mayberry, launched the consignor.ca interface. In 2013, Rob Cowley and Lydia Abbott, both veterans with at least 10 years of experience in the Canadian auction field, joined him as managing partners and owners. They launched Consignor Canadian Fine Art at 326 Dundas St West, Toronto, across from the
Art Gallery of Ontario, launching a model new to the Canadian market—online-only auctions complemented by a year-round gallery space. The three sales generated 29 broken records for Canadian artists. Consignor held its first sale online in September 2013. It saw positive growth within its first year, as in May 2014 it broke the record for a Canadian online auction, with
Jack Bush's
Summer Lake achieving a price of $310,000. On May 31, 2016, it held its first semi-annual live sale - a success, due in part to the discovery of a
Lawren Harris oil sketch,
Algoma (Algoma Sketch 48), in a private collection in Australia which achieved a price of $977,500. It was rebranded as Cowley Abbott in 2019 with both online and live sales held semi-annually. In the fall of 2020, it presented what was called an online live presentation due to new provincial public health restrictions but by spring 2021, live auctions were normal again and its live platform was "well received" with good results "rolling out quickly". The first private collection auction broke 12 artist records. but Cowley Abbott's two session live auction event, which also included their live auction of important Canadian art in the afternoon, achieved a combined $19.6 million. The Cowley Abbott's two-session spring live auction event on June 8, grossed more than $16 million with
An Important Private Collection of Canadian Art cumulatively achieved a gross total of over $27 million across the two auctions to date with a final installment coming in December 2023. It was on track "to become the highest-grossing private collection of Canadian art ever sold at auction" according to
Art Daily the three sales generating 29 broken records for Canadian artists. Both parts of the 2023 sales attracted significant attention from the collecting audience. The catalogues, filled with detailed essays by Canada's art historians, were thought to be "treasures for any library". "Cowley Abbott devoted care, appreciation and devotion to these auctions", wrote
Galleries West magazine in the spring of 2023 and this comment was confirmed in fall 2023 by the expertly curated catalogues prepared for the auctions. == Notable sales ==