The connoisseur is usually not a monothematic collector. Rather, it is a peculiar spiritual quest where the individual is drawn to the object by qualities which often escape the perception of those schooled in the orthodoxy of style and marketplace demand. The object demands the attention of this type of collector and requires this collector to acquire, delight in, research, and thereby reenergize the collection by the addition of another superb item.
Financial considerations become minor keys in the object of desire.
The marketplace is more concerned with art by the pound system. Often it is more the name of the collector as a prominent person which values the objects. The auction houses have become infamous casinos of too-young experts whose expertise may have been gained by nepotistic chains and the reliance on the promotional devices of letters of provenance and good photography in paid advertising in arts magazines. The connoisseur object has a life of its own. An animus visible to the seeker which gives the object a sense of sum, an archetype, a statement by its maker that I was here to do this in my time.