Word: gavelling
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...sale in years has come closer to craziness than Sotheby Parke Bernet's Auction 4290 in Manhattan on Oct. 25. It took only three minutes and 45 seconds to gavel down Frederic Edwin Church's The Icebergs for $2.5 million. That was the third highest bid ever made for a painting at auction* and more than twice as much as any other American work of art has ever fetched (see ESSAY). In all, the 264 works by 146 American painters of the 19th and 20th centuries posted a record for a sale...
...important auction combines the tension of an operatic first night with the ambience of a celebrity party. A top auctioneer has the talents of a croupier, a fight promoter and a matinee idol. As SPB President John Marion, who has wielded the gavel for 18 years, said to TIME'S Georgia Harbison: "A good auctioneer is very much like a good lecturer. Everyone should understand what's going on and be sitting forward in his seat." He added: "Sometimes the atmosphere in the salesroom is absolutely crackling. The eyes of the whole world...
...process. London's Waddington points out that the auction world's Big Two, unlike most thriving corporations, do not plow back even part of their profits into research, grants for young artists or gifts to museums. Says he: "They are simply dealing in commodities." There is a gavel-size black cloud over the Big Two, however. Christie's, closely followed in London by Sotheby's, in 1975 tacked a 10% buyer's premium on all sales (in addition to the average 10% commission charged the seller). English dealers with American backing sued the two firms...
...surprise. Surprise he did. While the incumbent speaker and supporters were feasting at a dinner, Brown's cohorts, known as "the dirty dozen," collected legislators' signatures on a petition that changed the house's voting rules and enabled Brown to call for an immediate vote that gave him the gavel. Since then the Republican, a former insurance salesman from Daytona Beach, has reformed the ramshackle procedures of the house, cut school taxes and held down property taxes. Brown, who stands for efficiency and economy...
...legal abortion. The new "Euro-President" quickly gave the Parliament an early sample of the no-nonsense grit behind her gentle smile. When Protestant Ulster Unionist the Rev. Ian Paisley heckled Irish Prime Minister Jack Lynch for delivering part of his speech in Irish Gaelic, Veil rapped her gavel and, in softly spoken French, effectively told him to shut...