One Man’s Art Collection Just Sold for (Only) $420 Million

On Wednesday and Thursday, 200 art objects from the late billionaire Alfred Taubman's estate sold for a total of $419.7 million. For many (most?) human beings on the planet, a few hundred objects netting close to half a billion dollars would be cause for celebration. Among the art world's dealer/adviser/journalist class, however, the sale occasioned hand-wringing and recrimination.

The problem lay in the fact that Sotheby's had reportedly guaranteed the sale of Taubman's 500-piece collection (more art will be sold later) for an unprecedented $500 million. The guarantee, which was a record in the art world, came about because of a reported bidding war between Sotheby's and its rival auction house, Christie's. Taubman was the onetime chairman of Sotheby's (a price-fixing scandal sent him briefly to jail and put an end to his tenure), and so, from the outside at least, it appeared that the auction house had to do anything—even saddle itself with a $500 million bet—to represent the sale of its ex-chairman. As a result, if the art sold for less than that guaranteed amount, they would actually lose money.