Word: goghs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Above all, he wanted a Van Gogh. In 1987 he was the underbidder on Sunflowers, which fetched a record $39.9 million at Christie's in London. Then, as underbidder again, he just missed The Bridge at Trinquetaille, which sold for $20.2 million, also at Christie's, a few months later. So when he learned that Irises was coming up at Sotheby's in New York City in November of the same year, he decided to go the limit...
...points. Actually, the market was running quite high between the crash and the sale of Irises, but the painting was greeted as a talisman. Bond beefed up the security arrangements on the top floor of his headquarters in Perth to fortress strength and unveiled his acquisition -- the only Van Gogh in Australia -- to the press. "This isn't just a great painting!" he exulted to the cameras. "It's the greatest painting in the world...
Early in 1989 Bond arranged to send the Van Gogh and five minor impressionist paintings he owned, packaged as "Irises and Five Masterpieces," on a tour of Australian museums, finishing at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth. Irises was set in a double-glazed frame that ensured no one could touch or even closely inspect its surface -- which made some skeptical Aussies suspect it was an exact copy commissioned, for security reasons, by Sotheby...
...exhibition ended. The trustees of the museum wanted to be sure they would not be held liable for possible damage to Irises; there had already been demonstrations outside, protesting Bond's investments in Chile. The trustees called in government lawyers to check on the insurance of the Van Gogh...
...Gogh was sent for safekeeping to an undisclosed place -- probably in Switzerland. Sotheby's insists that though it has "control" of Irises, Bond still "owns" it. The firm denies any knowledge of the Hong Kong companies...