Word: auctions
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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London hasn't known such excitement since 1901, when Edward VII discovered that Queen Victoria had overstocked on fine sherry (he preferred champagne) and ordered 5,000 bottles from the royal cellar put up for auction. Reviving a pleasant pre-World War II custom, London's leading auction houses have recently added vintage wine to their stock in trade. It has turned out to be a bonanza. Before the year is out, Sotheby's and Christie's expect to move more than $1,000,000 in vintage wine, and prices for rare 100-and 200-year...
Take the scene at Christie's last week. Gathered in a reverent circle for a pre-auction sampling was a handful of collectors, rich young men, food snobs and knowing oenophiles. Before them was a small, gray-green, hand-blown bottle. Carefully the dust of two centuries was wiped clean, the hard wax seal was delicately chipped from the neck, and with surgical precision the ancient cork was drawn in one piece. Then a thimbleful of bright, golden liquid was poured into a small, tulip-shaped glass. A patrician sniff, a twirl of the glass, the first...
...York, found a suitcase with four fake paintings, forged custom stamps and certificates by experts, all addressed to Dallas. Lessard has been acting as "private secretary" to a dandy named Fernand Legros, who last March in Paris sent a photo of a painting supposedly by Andre Derain to an auction house, only to have the painter's widow question its authenticity. Two Dufys and a Vlaminck offered by Legros to the house were handed over to police...
...alone. "There is hardly a new collection in the U.S. that does not have at least one fake," says Joseph Chapman, former FBI agent on art frauds. The problem in routing out the fakers is that the gulled buyer will rarely swear out a complaint, often chooses to auction off his mistakes or donate them to charitable organizations as a tax write-off. Says one Los Angeles investigator: "How many con games are there that have the power to convert the victims into accomplices after they have found out that they have been...
Among other new highs at Sotheby's: a Cézanne watercolor still life of a milk jug and apples, which brought $406,000-the highest price ever paid for any watercolor at auction. Since the bidder was a Los Angeles dealer, people speculated that he had acted for Collector Norton Simon, who remained mum. A Degas bronze horse pranced off for a record price of $51,800. A Chagall picture (circa 1917) brought $84,000, a new record for him. All in all, Sotheby's knocked down for $2,962,960, 87 works of art, a record...