Word: offing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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English auction firms are particularly renowned for their well-connected staffers' ability to sniff out what they delicately call "aristocratic sales of necessity" (translation: the duke needs cash). Even the sophisticated rich often have unexpected treasures on their premises. Before sitting down to lunch at their country estate with...
As audiences have changed, so have the mechanics of auctioneering. Twenty years ago, salesrooms were decorous, dusty-and dull. They were frequented mostly by dealers or agents for anonymous collectors. Save for the hobbyist or scholar who might attend a sale of arms and armor or rare folios, amateurs seldom...
The auction as a news and social spectacular came to full flower with Sotheby's acquisition of Manhattan's Parke-Bernet in 1964. Christie's, its more decorous rival, came to New York 13 years later and has been more cautious about expanding worldwide. (Sotheby's...
It has been only in the past decade or so that the big sales have been covered by the press as Events; the sums paid for art used to be buried in newspapers along with ship arrivals. Now, with the tremendous increases in fine arts prices and the expansion of...
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