Evening star., 1961-04-02


one of the all-time champs,
Raphaels ALBA Madonna"
which, almost 30 years ago,
came into American hands
for more than a million.
Market Mechanics
Many art lovers are mildly
baffled by the whole phe-
nomenon Of art prices. The
price Of art seems to be es-
tablished by some mysterious
agency, often called the in
ternational market, which
seems to bear little resem.
blance, in its operations, to
the relatively clear ways in
which price is established for
food or furniture, for electri-
cal equipment, for money it
self.
Actually, unlike all those
commodities, art finds its
price in a truly free market.
Adam Smith, the classical
economist, is widely held to
be irrelevant to many areas
Of today's economy. The &C.
onomics of art, especially in
the higher reaches, behave
with perfect conformity to
Smiths iron laws" Of supply
and demand.
Demand is established in
the classical setting Of the
auction room, with rival bid
ders. usually dealers or agents
rather than principals, COM
peting directly. bid by bid,
until all but one drop out.
For decades, Paris was the
center Of this activity. More
recently the center seems to
be shifting to New York and
London. The London auction
houses of Sotheby'S and
Christie's, and the New York
house of Parke- -Bernet, have
all been enjoying one record
season after another. Auc-
tions are crowded, bidding is
brisk, prices are high. Closed
circuit television has been
experimental with as q
means of accommodating
more buyers. 1t is freely
predicted that in the not too
distant future, London bid
derS and New York bidders
will regularly grapple by
means of the cathode tube.
When that happens. it is
reasonable to assume that
prices will go even higher.
Variations
From the auction rooms
the word on price spreads
quickly. Among the most
fascinating reading in the
whole field Of art are the
priced catalogs published by
the major houses after each
sale. These documents, which
have grown increasingly Law
ish of late, may be subscribed
to like magazines. In the
hands of the subscribers, they
perform a function some
where between the bid-and-
asked quotations in the Wall
Street Journal and the Blue
Book Of used car salesmen.
The whole elaborate auc-
ton apparatus applies chiefly
to one body of art. which,
although it includes work of
almost a dozen readily dis
tinguiShable schools, is most
easily described as, French
painting of the'19th and goth
centuries. An occasional COL
lection Of old masters gets
on to the auction block
more likely in London than
New York-but the quality
and the frequency have de-
clined steadily over the last
decades. This is because in
our century, due to Inherit
ance taxes, the great private
collections almost automat-
ically pass into the public
domain, as gifts and bequests
to museums.
The same thing, of course,
Is happening to French
painting Of the 10th and goth
centuries, but there is still a
large number of works in
private hands. Some of the
most admired artists are still
producing, notably Picasso.
The auction trade is mostly
in such paintings, from Del
acroiX on up.
Prices for old masters, in
cluding the Soviet package
sale to Andrew Mellon,
among which was the Alba
Madonna, are more often
struck by direct negotiation.
Because of the simultane-
GUS operation of both these
methods and because it is
extremely difficult to make
comparisons between differ
ent pictures at different
times and different places,