Word: one
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...noble beasts, Highland crags and soul-pierced virgins were selling for at most $1,000 in 1967; they go these days for up to $100,000. A sale of 19th century paintings at Christie's in Manhattan returned $1.9 million. "It was a lot of rubbish," snorted one Christie...
...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...
...some critics, the auction houses' success is excessive. While no one blames them for dizzy prices-they are not their bidders' keepers-even dealers who are making wild profits as a result of the art boom evince a certain distaste for the whole 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...
...unexpected treasures on their premises. Before sitting down to lunch at their country estate with the Earl and Countess of Verulam, Christie's Oriental ceramics director, Sir John Figgess, asked his host "if there was a cloakroom [bathroom] handy." There were two cloakrooms, allowed Verulam: "You take this one and I'll take that one." In the John that Sir John took, he found a mid-14th century underglaze copper red-and-white wine jar. The Ming jar sold-at Christie's, naturally...
...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 bid for anything; mostly they were scared away. One intimidating aspect of auctions has been the seriocomic notion that by a cough or casual gesture the unwitting onlooker may become a high-rolling bidder. Only half in jest, Louis Marion, who headed the old Parke-Bernet firm and was the father of SPB's President John Marion, once...