The Secret to Getting a 99,766 Percent Return in the Art Market

Near the end of the Old Master Paintings sale at Sotheby’s New York today, a small painting of a church steeple and fields by the British artist John Constable flashed on the screen.

Bidding for the painting began slowly—it started at $1 million and went upward in $100,000 increments—but the pace picked up when two anonymous phone bidders faced off, driving the price well past its presale estimate of $2 million to $3 million. By the time it hit $4 million the room had become totally silent, and it was then that one untraceable male voice in the back muttered, “Someone at Christie’s is going to get fired.”