Word: auction
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...night of the auction, an agent for Bond in New York City placed his bids by telephone. Irises, according to observers, quite quickly went up to $40 million. After a slight lull, the contest resumed between two telephones, whose disembodied bids were relayed to auctioneer John Marion. Moments later, Irises was hammered down to an anonymous bidder at $49 million -- $53.9 million counting the 10% buyer's commission. The name of the underbidder on the other phone has never been divulged. A year went by before it was announced that Bond was the new owner of Irises...
...auction house had no choice. It had punctually paid John Payson the full sale amount, $49 million, and now the exposure of the buyer's inability to pay for the painting would have been horrendous. Although the firm could have repossessed Irises and put it on the block again, such a move would almost certainly have been a disaster. It might have brought $30 million, maybe $35 million, according to informed sources -- a fire sale. And the results for the art market if the World's Most Expensive Picture lost a third of its value in a year...
Meanwhile, rumors about Bond's delay in paying up were spreading through financial circles. Last January an Australian finance company approached an auction house in London with the utterly novel idea of packaging an option on Irises, in the event that Dallhold Investments -- the holding company through which Bond owned the picture -- defaulted. The auction house rejected this proposal. In late 1988 Bond himself reportedly tried to pass off Irises to the New York megadeveloper Donald Trump as partial payment on a $180 million deal for the St. Moritz Hotel. Trump, no collector, said the painting was worth only...
...lease payments and the original $3.96 million and take ownership of the Manet. All seemed well until an American adviser in 1987 pointed out to Chemical that by law the Manet belonged to the bank and not to Bond. Its price had gone up. So why shouldn't Chemical auction the Manet on behalf of its shareholders? On learning of this suggestion, Bond reportedly flew into an epic rage. Chemical backed down and let Bond pay off the lease and keep the picture...
COVER: As the art market explodes, auction houses and dealers are the winners, museums and the public are the losers...