Word: salesrooms
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Prize Catch. Like maharajahs eager for a tiger hunt, the big dealers and collectors came flocking to the humid, glass-roofed main salesroom of London's famed Sotheby's (pronounced Sutherbees) auction house. Prize catch of the lot was clearly Peter Paul Rubens' Adoration of the Magi. A 10 ft. 9¼ in. by 8 ft. panel painted by Rubens at the peak of his powers in 1634 for Louvain's Convent of the Dames Blanches, it is considered by dealers not only the best Rubens in Britain but the most important old master...
...gathering of jewelers and curiosity seekers crowded into a San Francisco salesroom, relentlessly bid down a 105-piece collection of gems (estimated value: $250,000) to a paltry $50,000. Previous owner of the baubles: the late France., Heenan ("Peaches") Browning Willson, pudgy nymphet bride at 15 (in 1926) of oddball Moneyman Edward West ("Daddy") Browning, then 51, who six months after their splashy nuptials shed her animal-fancying Daddy in the decade's most untidy divorce...
...York City stores reported 25% and 33% losses in business. "It definitely hurt unemployment," said a Labor Department expert. "It slowed up construction and farming." Wrote Washington Pundit David Lawrence: "People just don't go downtown shopping or begin to look at the new cars in the salesroom when they can't even get back and forth from work...
Just how intelligent was apparent last week to dealers and art collectors, 4,100 of whom turned up in one day to preview the collection. Faced with more than 4,000 applications for tickets to the auction, Parke-Bernet sent out 850 for the main, velvet-draped salesroom, another 700 for side galleries, where for the first time at a U.S. auction bidders could view the works in black and white on closed-circuit TV, have their bids transmitted by loudspeaker. Forewarned of the expected crush, Millionaire Collectors Nelson Rockefeller and Winthrop Aldrich arrived 1½ hours early...
...bids as 18 green-uniformed bid callers and four assistant auctioneers tried to keep up with the rush that shot the price in 2 min. 15 sec. from a $15,000 opener to a Vuillard world record of $70,000. To the consternation of the mink-coated main-salesroom elite, the loudspeaker bids from lesser collectors relegated to the TV sets kept right up with the big money...