When Is an Auction Record Not an Auction Record?
Can Christie's claim a new auction record for a Qing Dynasty ceramic without appending a big asterisk, when the buyer turns out to be the consignor's own sister?
Bloomberg reported that Alice Cheng was the Hong Kong auction's winning bidder today, at $19.5 million, for the Qing porcelain bowl sold by her own brother, 80-year-old Hong Kong art dealer Robert Chang. The final price (which includes the buyer's premium) trounced the top end of bowl's presale hammer-price estimate, $7.8 million.
This brought to mind another Great Moment in Auction History, when a "record price" for contemporary art was set by Willem de Kooning's ''Interchange,'' auctioned at Sotheby's, New York, for $20.7 million in 1989. The only problem was, the dealers who won the bidding, Mountain Tortoise Company of Tokyo, couldn't pay for it. Nonetheless, this dubious record continued to be trumpeted by the auction houses for years to come.
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LEE ROSENBAUM
I'm a veteran cultural journalist who writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal's "Leisure & Arts" page. I am a regular cultural contributor on New York Public Radio (WNYC). I've appeared as an art-market commentator on BBC-TV and have published numerous Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. I am author of The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf) and have lectured on cultural property issues at the New Acropolis Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, on deaccessioning at Columbia Law School and on museum governance at Seton Hall University. Contact me
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