ABSTRACT
On 5 May 2004 at 7.25 p.m. New York time, in the space of five minutes Picasso’s ‘Boy with a Pipe’ was hammered down to an anonymous bidder for $93 million, a price which rose to $104 million (£58 million) after Sotheby’s added its colossal $11 million commission. A number of things can be said about this event. The first is that ‘Boy with a Pipe’ is now either the most or, in real terms, the third most expensive work of art ever sold at auction. The second is that the prices paid for art and antiques since the late 1980s are the highest ever. If the extravagant Duke of Saxony had been pitched against the Picasso buyer in a bidding battle of similar magnitude for Raphael’s ‘Sistine Madonna’ (a painting the Duke acquired in 1754) he would have needed 163 times more cash. The third is that the capital returns on the Picasso have earned the vendor the equivalent of 64 per cent interest per annum over 54 years. The fourth is the morally suspect circumstances in which the work was sold, with the wife of its original owner, MendelssohnBarholdy, allegedly having sold the painting to a dealer against the wishes laid down by her deceased husband in his will. What does all this tell us about the art market, its past, present and future? Indeed, what is the art market? This book aims to give you the answers.
