The Old Master market is exploding and New York is increasingly turning into the international art clearing house where the bangs are loudest. On Jan. 27 at Christie's and on Jan. 28 at Sotheby's, money spent on paintings exceeded dollars 86 million. But as the market becomes increasingly dominated by new buyers, unsure of their own tastes, unaware of any hierarchy of values, patterns become chaotic, with some great paintings selling at a considerable loss for their vendors.
Discovery is as ever the magical recipe for success.
Italian Primitives, sought after for 150 years, still come out of the woodwork. A marvelous ''Crucifixion'' by Taddeo Gaddi turned up at Sotheby's. Previously unrecorded, the early 14th-century Florentine panel shot up to dollars 690,000, four times the high estimate, this despite being cropped at the top and battered along the edges. In a contrast typical of the rudderless market, an equally marvelous ''Virgin and Child,'' by Lorenzo di Niccolo, only slightly exceeded a timid estimate as it sold for dollars 123,500 immediately afterward. Greater discoveries could be seen among Flemish Primitives, most strikingly the portrait of a young boy whom Sotheby's experts considered to be Philip the Fair, son of Maximilian I, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.