The buyer of two bronze animal heads at the Christies auction of Yves Saint-Laurent’s estate now says that he will not pay, and indeed that he made the bid in protest to break up the auction.
I can understand that the auction touches on some raw nerves in China; the pieces were looted from the Summer Palace in 1860, and, as with works stolen or sold under duress in Europe in the 1930s/1940s, there is a point where the statute of limitations rewards some terrible actors.
The story of the pieces gets particularly interesting with Pierre Berge’s comment that China could have the pieces back for free if they would let Tibet have its freedom; if something stolen in 1860 is not considered settled, what about something stolen in 1950?
Beyond the political, though, what is with an auction house not requiring some sort of deposit to bid? What is the point of using a serious auction house if the house will let some random guy call in from China, bid €28mm and then walk away? I expected that sort of thing from the Bush Administration, which was in such a rush to issue oil leases in Utah that it allowed a protestor to walk into a Bureau of Land Management auction and claim a dozen parcels before giving the game away by simply leaving his hand in the air.
For that matter, isn’t this approach a plot device with the Faberge egg in Octopussy?
In hundreds of years of auctions, how has this problem not been addressed yet?
Though the auction houses dont require deposits to bid, they do generally require that potential bidders show they have the ability to pay. Could be in this case Christie’s didnt, given that the protest bidder is, in fact, a major buyer of Chinese art (the Times cites his record $15mm 2006 purchase of a Ming dynasty bronze buddha).
Not that this is likely to satisfy the seller, who is now out $40mm and stuck with two reputationally-compromised animal heads. Theyve altered their article now, but the Times piece originally quoted a Christie’s spokesperson in HK (whom you actually met once, Taunter; Ill explain later) saying “Many sellers in similar situations happily take their artwork back”. I think in this case its probably safe to translate that as “Please dont sue the crap out of us, Mr. Berge.”
Maybe you should buy them from him: they are excellent accessories for any Underground Lair.
I wonder if they would look nice next to my The Storm on the Sea of Galilee?
I don’t know if the seller should be happy or sad. He is obviously out $40mm, or at least the cover bid, but the rest of the auction went quite well, the pieces are now a lot more famous, and he gets some more time in the limelight to defend Tibet and other lost causes. A romantic ending, or at least a very French one.
Still, seems like an unbelievable oversight to let someone throw around significant numbers in a rare auction during a financial crisis and not have any skin in the game. What if the winning bidder had the best of intentions but huge, illiquid positions in US financial institutions and found himself suddenly staring at a much larger chunk of his net worth than previously thought? I would have expected Christie’s to think of this potential scenario well before someone telephoned in a bid from a country that is not likely to cooperate in the pursuit of assets.