Word: would
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...insurance? When the Metropolitan Museum of Art's show "Van Gogh at Arles" was being planned in the early '80s, it was assigned a global value for insurance of about $1 billion. Today it would be $5 billion, and the show could never be done. In the wake of Irises, every Van Gogh owner wants to believe his painting is worth $50 million and will not let it off the wall if insured for less. Even there, the problem is compounded by the auction houses: when consulted on insurance values or by the IRS, they tend to stick the maximum...
...nature of the art sale. In 1983 the old English firm of Sotheby's was taken over by A. Alfred Taubman, American conglomerator, real estate giant and collector. The deal had to be approved by Britain's Monopolies and Mergers Commission. At the commission hearings, Taubman declared that he would be "very concerned" if the public ever got the idea that Sotheby's was centered anywhere but Britain, and that the "traditional nature of the business and of the services offered would be changed as little as possible." Request approved...
...practice, both above and below the reserve." (A chandelier bid above the reserve violates present rules.) Aponte was also concerned about the practices of not announcing buy-ins and of keeping reserves secret. The auction houses held that if bidders knew what the reserve on a lot was, it would chill the market. Art dealers, lobbying the agency, maintained that the reserve should be disclosed and that bidding should start...
...Sotheby's, a mere announcement in the catalog that it offers such financial services is enough to comply with the law. But its use to the buyer is nil -- and is meant to be. Disclosure might be chilling to other bidders. Or at least vulgarly explicit. Which auctioneers would rather die than be. One is not, after all, selling rusty tin Mickey Mice and kitchen chairs in a rented hall in Vermont...
...happy from a legal standpoint," says Aponte. "O.K., Sotheby's says in its catalog that it offers financial services, but I'd like to see disclosure of the entire commitment. I would like to know if it is part owner of a painting, and if it has a fiduciary interest, I want to know what it is. If it lends Bond $27 million, I want that fact in the catalog...