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Back to the art market

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In the last two weeks Sotheby’s sold more than $2 billion of art. That’s a lot of art. Yesterday I visited Sotheby’s and saw four exhibits on sale — cars, watches (really hot), diamonds, and one book (more about that in a moment).

This 1938 Teardrop Cabriolet will go for $10 million.

TeardropCabriolet

This 2011 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Blue Nuit will go for $2.8 million.

Bugatti

My favorite is this 1933 Duesenberg Model SJ Beverly going for probably only $2.5 million.

Dusenberg

Though I loved the 1933 Auburn Twelve Custom Speedster for only $1.6 million.

Auburn

More to my pocketbook is the 1960 TG500 Tiger for only $250,000.

TG500Tiger

Among art markets I’ve visited in recent weeks — watches, cars, diamonds, 17th century European art, 18th century American furniture, 18th and 19th century American silverware, and contemporary post-war art — the “hottest market” is modern contemporary art, followed by “important” watches. I don’t know where cars fit in.

The consensus seems to be you buy what you love — except contemporary art. You buy it “because it’s going through the roof,” as one Sotheby’s expert mentioned, and because “money in the bank is dead.”

The “BIG trend is stratification. The best pieces go higher. The not-so-good pieces struggle. That’s what you’d expect an auction house to say because they like the publicity (and the commissions) that come with unbelievable prices. Remember the $142.4 million price on this recent sale, Francis Bacon’s Three Studies of Lucian Freud.

Three Studies of Lucian Freud

If you’re getting into buying art as an investment, the key is buy something that ‘s beautiful, rare, and “important.” I don’t know how you figure this out, except that the people I’ve met seem to have studied their fields for years, and can prattle on endlessly about why the stuff is beautiful, rare, important and costs so darn much.

This thing is called The Sleep of Venus. It’s by Francois Boucher. It’s from 1754. I include it because I saw it yesterday and because it’s not a car, not contemporary art, not a watch but will still fetch $3 million.

SleepofVenus

Other things I learned:

+ Photos of watches are more attractive than the watches themselves.

+ The cars are on public exhibit today and tomorrow at Sotheby’s at 72nd Street and York Avenue, in New York City.

+ Diamonds are boring, at least to me.

 + “Secondary” paintings may actually be a good deal. The man from Sotheby’s told me “we’re pricing the second rate ones down to a point where they’re really affordable.” As he said describing a nice 18th century inside-of church painting, “The painting is perfectly good, but not great.”

+ French 18th century French paintings used to be priced modestly, but the Russians have suddenly become obsessed with this period and prices have gone crazy.

+ The 1640 Whole Book of Psalmes will go for $30 million. It was used for prayers in early America. The one Sotheby’s is selling is one of the finest surviving copies and one of two from the collection of the Old South Church in Boston. Allegedly, this was the first book ever printed in America. You can read about it on Wikipedia. Click here.

+ Sotheby’s cleans its cars with stuff from Griot’s Garage. Click here.

+  Most cars had a pedestal with an iPad II in it. The iPad contained info on the car (and its price). You could scroll the display and read the car’s history. Curiously, the iPads in the Sotheby’s pedestals are IIs, not the newer ones with retina displays. Turns out you can’t leave the retina displays plugged and expect them to stay on 24/7. They can’t charge as fast as the charger can provide power. The older ones can. Apple bug.

SothebysPedestals

  HarryNewton
Harry Newton who wishes he’d started studying contemporary art maybe 40 years ago and bought “important” stuff along the way. We do have some art on our walls. I think it’s important, but I suspect no one else does.

13 Comments

  1. pahowley says:

    Diamonds are a girls best friend. Surprised after your decades long marriage you haven’t discovered that! I’ve known thousands of women and never met one who didn’t love diamonds. It’s not too late, Harry.