Sotheby's
Bidding for Class
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Little, Brown Book Group
Published:4th Mar '99
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
* National press ad campaign targeting the diary/society pages in the DAILY TELEGRAPH, TIMES and DAILY MAIL *Poster * To be submitted for trade promotions * Review coverage * Reading copies available
* The engrossing story of Sotheby's, the world's largest auction house, by the author of MAJESTY, THE KINGDOM and GRACE.This volume explores the history of Sotheby's auction house, tracing its beginnings back to 1744. It was in the latter half of the 19th century, when economic instability forced the aristocrats to sell off many of their treasures, that Sotheby's began to lay the foundations of the modern art market. The Sotheby's-Christie's rivalry intensified in the early-1900s and they have been battling it out ever since over the likes of Cezanne, Picasso, Van Gogh and Monet. Lacey takes the reader through the unprecedented boom of the 1980s, when Van Gogh's Irises went for $53.9 million, and examines the catastrophic effects of an inflation still being felt today.
This is no on-your-knees, aren't they wonderful corporate biography. It's a well-researched, largely accurate, acute, sometimes very funny analysis of a company which steps from scandal and hot water into the sunlight of success every month of the year * Godfrey Barker, LITERARY REVIEW' *
Written by the same old pacy, racy Lacey familiar to us from his royal books ... his talent for winkling out piquant detail is at its best * Bevis Hillier, SPECATOR *
[This is] no corporate biography byt a pacy, racy book on the auction house and its characters. * ANTIQUES TRADE GAZETTE *
This is about as readable an introduction to the guiles of modern auctioneering, including its sharper practices, as you are likely to find. * ART REVIEW *
ISBN: 9780751523621
Dimensions: 202mm x 126mm x 24mm
Weight: 440g
368 pages