Word: millions
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...price spiral is also sustained by a vastly increased public interest in art. More than 175 million Americans visited museums last year. Americans are better educated and more intrigued than ever with objects of lasting value. They share a hunger for possessions that have not been stamped out en masse for a homogenized society. They are beginning to emulate upper-crust Europeans, who have always invested disposable income in tangibles. Says Sotheby's Wilson: "We live in such difficult times that the art of the past is somehow reassuring. It can even be an alternative to religion." For many...
Thus collecting valuable objects is no longer the preserve of the rich. At Sotheby's Los Angeles branch, which recorded a 1978-79 turnover of $13.7 million, 50% of all items on sale go for less than $300. Says Sotheby's Los Angeles president, Peter McCoy: "It makes sense for the average person to frequent our auctions. He'll be competing with the antique shop owner who'll sell a piece for more [probably 40% more] than he can buy it here." Caveat emptor...
...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 are on you at an impressionist sale. As much as $5 million may change hands in one evening. You just feel the weight of money in the room...
...hope that, alive or dead, they will some day assign their possessions to the market: auction executives are among the world's most diligent readers of obituary pages. William Doyle, the ebullient Boston-Irish owner of a seven-year-old Manhattan house, who expects to gross $15 million this fiscal year, flies in his own plane to reconnoiter rumored treasures. On a trip to Warrensburg, N.Y., he found a trunkful of letters autographed by five of the signers of the Declaration of Independence...
...highest: Velazquez's Portrait of Juan de Pareja, $5.5 million, in 1970; Titian's Death of Actaeon, $4 million...