[REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][12.27]

豆腐店的86UID: 2512956

Back to the future
Dec 19th 2009
From Economist.com
生词
读多遍才懂的句子
好句子，好表达法
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant
WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental. With bad weather coming, much of London may have been preparing to shut down early for Christmas last week. But Christie’s sale of Victorian and British Impressionist pictures on December 16th and Sotheby’s sale of Victorian and Edwardian paintings the next day were surprisingly busy.

Sotheby's

Of the two auctions, Sotheby’s was by far more successful, fetching £4.4m ($7.1m) for works by some of the best-known names of the period, including Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Alfred Munnings, Dame Laura Knight and Charles Spencelayh. The cover lot, Spencelayh’s “The Old Dealer”, sold for a record price for the artist at auction. The buyer was David Mason, a London dealer who joined his father’s firm, MacConnal-Mason, when he was just 17. Mr Mason, who has seen recessions come and go in the 53 year he has been in the business, said afterwards: “Prices today reflect what is happening out there. People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.”

Buyers in every sector of the art market, from Chinese porcelain to Old Masters, now seem to follow a pattern. They are happy to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures, but leave the rest untouched. Nearly 40% of the lots in Sotheby’s sale were bought in. Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate. Some pieces went for as much as four times what the auction house had predicted.

John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893. His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight. Eight years ago Mr Mason sold an 1881 Grimshaw entitled “Prince’s Dock, Hull” to an American collector for £130,000. Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s, that same American saw his Grimshaw sell to an anonymous bidder for £397,250 (including commission and taxes), the third highest price achieved for the artist at auction.

Spencelayh, the son of an iron and brass founder, rose to be a prolific member of the Royal Academy of Arts and a favourite of Queen Mary. His work is, if anything, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s. Spencelayh, who died in 1928, liked to paint fussy interiors. The most sought after are realistic pictures of men, often gathered around a table in a room full of clutter, with glazed jugs, books, umbrellas and pieces of velvet jumbled together. There is usually a pipe or two on the table, and there is nearly always a clock hanging on the wall.

A Manchester cotton merchant named Levy supported Spencelayh from the early 1920s. He offered the artist and his wife a house to live in and bought a number of his paintings. When Levy's widow, Rosie, auctioned his collection in 1946, the picture that fetched the highest sum was “The Old Dealer”, which Spencelayh had painted in 1925. It was sold again in 1973, where it was bought by Richard Green, a London dealer, on behalf of an American collector for about £30,000.

Consigned last week to Sotheby’s by this same collector, it sold for more than ten times that (£337,250 including commission and taxes) to Mr Mason. Mr Green, an earlier owner, was the underbidder. “It has everything you could want: the old man, the clock, the knickknacks,” Mr Mason said afterwards. “It is quite simply the best example of a Spencelayh I have ever seen.” Mr Mason said he bought the picture for stock, with no particular collector in mind.



“On the Cliffs” (pictured above) is one of a series of pictures that Laura Knight painted of women sitting high above the water on the Cornish coast. In one of the earliest examples, “Daughter of the Sun”, the women were naked. That picture did not sell when Knight exhibited it at the Royal Academy in 1912, and Knight later cut it up and sold the pieces after it had become damaged. She continued to be inspired by the Cornish theme in the years before the end of the first world war, after she and her husband moved to London. In “On the Cliffs” one woman is sewing while the other may be threading a needle. Both are strong, calm figures. Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists. But there are no men in any of Knight’s pictures of this period, reminding viewers that war was close at hand.

“On the Cliffs” sold to an anonymous bidder for £646,050, nearly twice the top estimate. Even at that price, many regard the painting as a bargain. In July, Galen Weston, a Canadian billionaire whose family owns Fortnum & Mason, bought the companion picture, “Wind and Sun”. It cost him £914,850.

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sentimental a : marked or governed by feeling, sensibility, or emotional idealism  b : resulting from feeling rather than reason or thought  *a sentimental attachment*  *a sentimental favorite*
Consign to send or address to an agent to be cared for or sold
prolific  marked by abundant inventiveness or productivity  *a prolific composer*
sought seek 的过去分词，寻找·~·· fetch to bring in as a price
shimmer to shine with a soft tremulous or fitful light  : GLIMMER
idyllic   pleasing or picturesque in natural simplicity 田园诗的~
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comments
After reading the article and come back to the title, it seems even more difficult for me to grasp the writer’s idea. What exactly he wants to convey by the title “back to the future” and what connection lies between the title and context?

Like the previous articles on arts, this one provides examples which indicate the growth of the economy as well. The art market is now witnessing a rejuvenation of old-fashion. Clutter and realism, as genres of old painting, are becoming highly evaluated by bidders. In Sotheby’s sales record, it is these old fashioned paintings which achieved higher price than estimating that help the company survive the winter.

Back to the title, maybe it infers that old-fashion art is getting hotter in the market and it will receive more attentions in the near future.

木虫虫UID: 2694986

[REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][12.27]https://bbs.gter.net/thread-1045738-1-1.html

words & expression
new novelty
another curious corner
remained steadfastly踏实不变的 old-fashioned
were surprisingly busy.
Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s  托人代售
The most sought after追捧 are
on behalf of 代表
threading a needle穿针引线
close at hand 就在眼前


The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant
WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new

Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate.

John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893.

His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight.

His work is, if anything, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s.

Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering波光粼粼 and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists




专有名词解释
Christie's is a leading art business and a fine arts auction house.
Sotheby's is the world's third oldest auction house in continuous operation.
Lawrence Alma-Tadema   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Alma-Tadema
Alfred Munnings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Munnings
Dame Laura Knight
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dame_Laura_Knight
Charles Spencelayh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Spencelayh

Cornish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornwall
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%BA%B7%E6%B2%83%E5%B0%94



clutter uncountable

• a confused disordered jumble of things
• background echos, from clouds etc, on a radar screen

sentimental
1 a : marked or governed by feeling, sensibility, or emotional idealism b : resulting from feeling rather than reason or thought <a sentimental attachment> <a sentimental favorite>
2 : having an excess of sentiment or sensibility
— sen·ti·men·tal·ly adverb

lot
1 : an object used as a counter in determining a question by chance
2 a : the use of lots as a means of deciding something b : the resulting choice
3 a : something that comes to one upon whom a lot has fallen : share b : one's way of life or worldly fate : fortune
4 a : a portion of land b : a measured parcel of land having fixed boundaries and designated on a plot or survey c : a motion-picture studio and its adjoining property d : an establishment for the storage or sale of motor vehicles <a used car lot>
5 a : a number of units of an article, a single article, or a parcel of articles offered as one item (as in an auction sale) b : all the members of a present group, kind, or quantity —usually used with the <sampled the whole lot of desserts>
6 a : a number of associated persons : set <fell in with a rough lot> b : kind, sort
7 : a considerable quantity or extent <a lot of money> <lots of friends>


comment
At the first sight of this report, I was attracted by the particular title. As the highlight of this article, the interesting title is the epitome of the promising future of old-fashioned art works, which are taken for granted that should be “look back" never exit the stage of high bid.
Recession brings inflation and stock, this trend was reflected in the art market. Dealers and collectors treat art more like a reserve assets while neglecting the charm of art itself. However, it is the prosperity of the auction support artists in some extent in this day and age.

Further more, through this article, I know some famous artist in history, it is a meaningful gain.

sunflower_irisUID: 2720580

First of all, I agree that dealer himself is a business man rather than a critic. But you know, most dealers have the same point of view with the critics. The same example of Vincent Van Gogh, who did not enjoy his works? Neither dealers nor critics. Maybe you will remember Gauguin Paul, the guy who was cut a ear off by Vincent, his works also were not accepted. The reason was the art circle did not see the value of post-impressionism at that time, but not because the dealers were not far-sights.

Furthermore, I disagree that if dealers boost the art market, they shrink it as well. How do they shrink it? Do not buy any works at all? It’s impossible. They only could buy a style of the works instead of another one. They could change their taste but could not change the proceeding that buy art works. Because they need the works to protect them from the inflation or increase in value as the report was concerned.

Finally, what is the purpose of the artists? To express their emotion, spirit, and show a world of heart to other people of course. But at the same time, they want to be accepted, want to be enjoyed, and also want their works to be sold for earn their lives. Maybe you should say it’s a pity for art, but it’s the reality. And the dealers buy their works can encourge or help them continue their work. What is there against it and why they can not go ahead with it?


PS：It's excited to write a kinda argument. Thanks to 番茄

aladdin.ivyUID: 2596664

10# pluka

I lost my tongue on this topic...

Poor in knowledge of art and auction as I am, I see mainly the changeable and unpredictable prices that sometimes so high-flying as to surpass the top estimate easily. It may be interesting to dig more through the numbers and see why those fluctuations occur.

Contemporary financial background (backgrounds) of bidders, of course, influence a lot. As mentioned in the article, with tight budget, collectors are willing to pay high (even higher than at other time) for worthwhile masterpieces while discard other works that count for little. For them, those reputed paintings, porcelains and other brilliant pieces are tantamount to (这里加个动词会不会好一点，gain) valuable assess with a promising potential of appreciation. Stock them, and you get a good bargain.

What intrigues me, however, is why some pieces out of others gain great fame and adoration. Aplenty (A plenty) of artistis (artists) live in obscure for lifetime yet rise to be heros (heroes) or idols decades or even hundreds years later. The recognition for their works, in my eyes, is more or less a matter of good fortune. Those pieces must first survive the time--not necessarily must they undergo the so-called time-test but may simply be stored in dim and messy rooms, remaining untouched---until one day somebody swept the dust and discovered their beauties. This process involves many uncertain factors such as changes in social values and fads, current worship, and perhaps (the) most important, the status of the appreciator.


Humm...art is always a difficult topic.

评论很生动，好句子用下划线标出了~

miki7catUID: 2533330

My comment
I’m not sure whether the understanding below is correct of what Mr Mason said, which is “People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.” In my opinion, art, as one of investable assets, would hold investors’ value in longer term, and additionally the old-fashioned ones are proved valuable by having been sold many times and collected by many people, so that people “are happy to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures” , discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. Moreover, it is because inflation will make the prices of art works higher that inflation has always been the dealer’s friend.

Art.view
Back to the future
Dec 19th 2009
From Economist.com
The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant
curious【If you describe something as curious, you mean that it is unusual or difficult to understand.】
buoyant【A buoyant economy is a successful one in which there is a lot of trade and economic activity.】

WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental. With bad weather coming, much of London may have been preparing to shut down early for Christmas last week. But Christie’s sale of Victorian and British Impressionist pictures on December 16th and Sotheby’s sale of Victorian and Edwardian paintings the next day were surprisingly busy.

Of the two auctions, Sotheby’s was by far【You use the expression by far when you are comparing something or someone with others of the same kind, in order to emphasize how great the difference is between them. For example, you can say that something is by far the best or the best by far to indicate that it is definitely the best.】 more successful, fetching &pound;4.4m ($7.1m) for works by some of the best-known names of the period, including Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Alfred Munnings, Dame Laura Knight and Charles Spencelayh. The cover lot, Spencelayh’s “The Old Dealer”, sold for a record price for the artist at auction. The buyer was David Mason, a London dealer who joined his father’s firm, MacConnal-Mason, when he was just 17. Mr Mason, who has seen recessions come and go in the 53 year he has been in the business, said afterwards: “Prices today reflect what is happening out there. People are discounting【If you discount an idea, fact, or theory, you consider that it is not true, not important, or not relevant.】 the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.”

Buyers in every sector of the art market, from Chinese porcelain to Old Masters, now seem to follow a pattern. They are happy to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures, but leave the rest untouched. Nearly 40% of the lots in Sotheby’s sale were bought in. Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate. Some pieces went for as much as four times what the auction house had predicted.

John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893. His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight. Eight years ago Mr Mason sold an 1881 Grimshaw entitled “Prince’s Dock, Hull” to an American collector for &pound;130,000. Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s, that same American saw his Grimshaw sell to an anonymous bidder for &pound;397,250 (including commission and taxes), the third highest price achieved for the artist at auction.

Spencelayh, the son of an iron and brass founder, rose to be a prolific member of the Royal Academy of Arts and a favourite of Queen Mary. His work is, if anything, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s. Spencelayh, who died in 1928, liked to paint fussy interiors. The most sought after are realistic pictures of men, often gathered around a table in a room full of clutter, with glazed jugs, books, umbrellas and pieces of velvet jumbled together. There is usually a pipe or two on the table, and there is nearly always a clock hanging on the wall.

A Manchester cotton merchant named Levy supported Spencelayh from the early 1920s. He offered the artist and his wife a house to live in and bought a number of his paintings. When Levy's widow, Rosie, auctioned his collection in 1946, the picture that fetched the highest sum was “The Old Dealer”, which Spencelayh had painted in 1925. It was sold again in 1973, where it was bought by Richard Green, a London dealer, on behalf of【代表】 an American collector for about &pound;30,000.

Consigned last week to Sotheby’s by this same collector, it sold for more than ten times that (&pound;337,250 including commission and taxes) to Mr Mason. Mr Green, an earlier owner, was the underbidder. “It has everything you could want: the old man, the clock, the knickknacks,” Mr Mason said afterwards. “It is quite simply the best example of a Spencelayh I have ever seen.” Mr Mason said he bought the picture for stock, with no particular collector in mind.


“On the Cliffs” (pictured above) is one of a series of pictures that Laura Knight painted of women sitting high above the water on the Cornish coast. In one of the earliest examples, “Daughter of the Sun”, the women were naked【Someone who is naked is not wearing any clothes.】. That picture did not sell when Knight exhibited it at the Royal Academy in 1912, and Knight later cut it up and sold the pieces after it had become damaged. She continued to be inspired by the Cornish theme in the years before the end of the first world war, after she and her husband moved to London. In “On the Cliffs” one woman is sewing while the other may be threading a needle. Both are strong, calm figures. Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists. But there are no men in any of Knight’s pictures of this period, reminding viewers that war was close at hand.

“On the Cliffs” sold to an anonymous bidder for &pound;646,050, nearly twice the top estimate. Even at that price, many regard the painting as a bargain. In July, Galen Weston, a Canadian billionaire whose family owns Fortnum & Mason, bought the companion picture, “Wind and Sun”. It cost him &pound;914,850.

KiKi~淇水滺滺UID: 2679824

In that former “Suspended animation” article, we learnt the art market in general. We saw the current situation in this market, the contemporary art works are booming these days and how to sell and buy this art works in the market.

This article demonstrates more details about art market. It tells us another corner of favorite art works in this market----the old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental ones. It’s easy to understand. As few master pieces of art works are available because both collectors and museums tend to hold on to what they have, prices of older works keep going up as more people have money to spend. On the other hand, the number of old works can only be reduced rather than increased. We can find it’s a good investment to keep an eye on arts as the price can be times up after a few years. Of course, we should study deeper and be cautious if we want to treat it as an investment.

zhengchangdianUID: 2563082

Comment:

Art has always been a popular topic since mankind created cave paintings to record their daily life. It is believed that the arts reveal the otherwise hidden ideas and impulses of a society. In other words, the purpose of art is to upset the tradition. To illustrate this point of view clearly, here’s a good example. As known to all, the aesthetic conception has adjusted to the wave of change all the time. During the period of Renaissance, the famous painter Botticelli created a languished Venus to express the melancholy of goddess to come to this misery world. From then on, painters began to impute their creations with humanity, especially to depict emotions in the eyes of goddess. After that, Venus with soft and gentle profile symbolized the desire for love in numerous art works. And until the outbreak of Tiziano’s boldness and unrestraint could a voluptuous Venus greet us. In this development of aesthetic perception, one can draw a definite conclusion that the aim of art is overthrow the past.

What’s more, one can gain a new revelation from the selling of “On the Cliff”. It is really amazing to find that a delicate art work can be sold out when it has been cut up and damaged. At the same time the courage of Knight to wreck his own work is also worth celebrating. Maybe this act can be seen as a new way to preserve a work of art. In sum, art has always played an important role in overthrowing the tradition and providing new energy for the future life.

zhengchangdianUID: 2563082

14# aladdin.ivy

嗯，看到你引用了“The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant”，就忍不住想要问一下，这究竟是什么意思呢？

zhengchangdianUID: 2563082

6# fancyww

对于标题，我还是有点疑问的：back to the future，回到未来，感觉好像是一种paradox啊:L

kulewy531UID: 2603031

Back to the future
生词
Dec 19th 2009
From Economist.com
The taste for clutter (jumble) and realism is curiously buoyant(emerge)
WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly(firmly) old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental. With bad weather coming, much of London may have been preparing to shut down early for Christmas last week. But Christie’s sale of Victorian and British Impressionist pictures on December 16th and Sotheby’s sale of Victorian and Edwardian paintings the next day were surprisingly busy.

Sotheby's

Of the two auctions, Sotheby’s was by far more successful, fetching &pound;4.4m ($7.1m) for works by some of the best-known names of the period, including Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Alfred Munnings, Dame Laura Knight and Charles Spencelayh. The cover lot, Spencelayh’s “The Old Dealer”, sold for a record price for the artist at auction. The buyer was David Mason, a London dealer who joined his father’s firm, MacConnal-Mason, when he was just 17. Mr Mason, who has seen recessions come and go in the 53 year he has been in the business, said afterwards: “Prices today reflect what is happening out there. People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.”

Buyers in every sector of the art market, from Chinese porcelain to Old Masters, now seem to follow a pattern. They are happy to pay over the odds(买贵了) for top-ranking pictures, but leave the rest untouched. Nearly 40% of the lots in Sotheby’s sale were bought in. Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate. Some pieces went for as much as four times what the auction house had predicted.

John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous (obvious) wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893. His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging (equipment) and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight. Eight years ago Mr Mason sold an 1881 Grimshaw entitled “Prince’s Dock, Hull” to an American collector for &pound;130,000. Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s, that same American saw his Grimshaw sell to an anonymous bidder for &pound;397,250 (including commission and taxes), the third highest price achieved for the artist at auction.

Spencelayh, the son of an iron and brass founder, rose to be a prolific member of the Royal Academy of Arts and a favourite of Queen Mary. His work is, if anything, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s. Spencelayh, who died in 1928, liked to paint fussy interiors. The most sought after are realistic pictures of men, often gathered around a table in a room full of clutter, with glazed jugs(罐), books, umbrellas and pieces of velvet jumbled together. There is usually a pipe or two on the table, and there is nearly always a clock hanging on the wall.

A Manchester cotton merchant named Levy supported Spencelayh from the early 1920s. He offered the artist and his wife a house to live in and bought a number of his paintings. When Levy's widow, Rosie, auctioned his collection in 1946, the picture that fetched the highest sum was “The Old Dealer”, which Spencelayh had painted in 1925. It was sold again in 1973, where it was bought by Richard Green, a London dealer, on behalf of an American collector for about &pound;30,000.

Consigned last week to Sotheby’s by this same collector, it sold for more than ten times that (&pound;337,250 including commission and taxes) to Mr Mason. Mr Green, an earlier owner, was the under bidder. “It has everything you could want: the old man, the clock, the knickknacks,” Mr Mason said afterwards. “It is quite simply the best example of a Spencelayh I have ever seen.” Mr Mason said he bought the picture for stock, with no particular collector in mind.



“On the Cliffs” (pictured above) is one of a series of pictures that Laura Knight painted of women sitting high above the water on the Cornish coast. In one of the earliest examples, “Daughter of the Sun”, the women were naked. That picture did not sell when Knight exhibited it at the Royal Academy in 1912, and Knight later cut it up and sold the pieces after it had become damaged. She continued to be inspired by the Cornish theme in the years before the end of the first world war, after she and her husband moved to London. In “On the Cliffs” one woman is sewing while the other may be threading a needle. Both are strong, calm figures. Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists. But there are no men in any of Knight’s pictures of this period, reminding viewers that war was close at hand.

“On the Cliffs” sold to an anonymous bidder for &pound;646,050, nearly twice the top estimate. Even at that price, many regard the painting as a bargain. In July, Galen Weston, a Canadian billionaire whose family owns Fortnum & Mason, bought the companion picture, “Wind and Sun”. It cost him &pound;914,850.

Comments:
What I want to emphasis first after reading the article is that, retailing the 3rd paragraph, bidders tend to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures, but leave out the rest. The reason, I guess, is that invest in the top-ranking lots can reduce the risk, though the profit reduces accordingly. The price of top-ranking ones is more stable, for it is commonly recognized by most people. Most of the investors are not devoted collector, but are those who seek shelter for the wealth. Because of that, top-ranking ones are highly evaluated.

Secondly, it is said that 40% of the lots are bought in. This fact just coincides with a former Economists article which says that the business of big auction houses changes from consignment to deals. Obviously, by this method, these auction house has increased their income.

中原527UID: 2707367

Back to the future
                   红色字体为生疏词汇或不懂句子
绿色为好的表达
紫色comments
Dec 19th 2009
From Economist.com
The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant
WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental. With bad weather coming, much of London may have been preparing to shut down early for Christmas last week. But Christie’s sale of Victorian and British Impressionist pictures on December 16th and Sotheby’s sale of Victorian and Edwardian paintings the next day were surprisingly busy.



Sotheby's

Of the two auctions, Sotheby’s was by far more successful, fetching &pound;4.4m ($7.1m) for works by some of the best-known names of the period, including Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Alfred Munnings, Dame Laura Knight and Charles Spencelayh. The cover lot, Spencelayh’s “The Old Dealer”, sold for a record price for the artist at auction. The buyer was David Mason, a London dealer who joined his father’s firm, MacConnal-Mason, when he was just 17. Mr Mason, who has seen recessions come and go in the 53 year he has been in the business, said afterwards: “Prices today reflect what is happening out there. （issue经济类可借鉴）People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.”
Buyers in every sector of the art market, from Chinese porcelain to Old Masters, now seem to follow a pattern. They are happy to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures, but leave the rest untouched. Nearly 40% of the lots in Sotheby’s sale were bought in. Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate.
Some pieces went for as much as four times what the auction house had predicted.
John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous
wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893. His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight. Eight years ago Mr Mason sold an 1881 Grimshaw entitled “Prince’s Dock, Hull” to an American collector for &pound;130,000. Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s, that same American saw his Grimshaw sell to an anonymous bidder for &pound;397,250 (including commission and taxes), the third highest price achieved for the artist at auction.

Spencelayh, the son of an iron and brass founder, rose to be a prolific member of the Royal Academy of Arts and a favourite of Queen Mary. His work is, if anything, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s. Spencelayh, who died in 1928, liked to paint fussy interiors. The most sought after are realistic pictures of men, often gathered around a table in a room full of clutter, with glazed jugs, books, umbrellas and pieces of velvet jumbled together. There is usually a pipe or two on the table, and there is nearly always a clock hanging on the wall.

A Manchester cotton merchant named Levy supported Spencelayh from the early 1920s. He offered the artist and his wife a house to live in and bought a number of his paintings. When Levy's widow(寡妇), Rosie, auctioned his collection in 1946, the picture [that fetched the highest sum] was “The Old Dealer”, which Spencelayh had painted in 1925. It was sold again in 1973, where it was bought by Richard Green, a London dealer, on behalf of an American collector for about &pound;30,000.

Consigned last week to Sotheby’s by this same collector, it sold for more than ten times that (&pound;337,250 including commission and taxes) to Mr Mason. Mr Green, an earlier owner, was the under bidder. “It has everything you could want: the old man, the clock, the knickknacks,” Mr Mason said afterwards. “It is quite simply the best example of a Spencelayh I have ever seen.” Mr Mason said he bought the picture for stock, with no particular collector in mind.
“On the Cliffs” (pictured above) is one of a series of pictures that Laura Knight painted of women sitting high above the water on the Cornish coast. In one of the earliest examples, “Daughter of the Sun”, the women were naked. That picture did not sell when Knight exhibited it at the Royal Academy in 1912, and Knight later cut it up and sold the pieces after it had become damaged. She continued to be inspired by the Cornish theme in the years before the end of the first world war, after she and her husband moved to London. In “On the Cliffs” one woman is sewing while the other may be threading a needle. Both are strong, calm figures. Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists.
But there are no men in any of Knight’s pictures of this period, reminding viewers that war was close at hand.

“On the Cliffs” sold to an anonymous bidder for &pound;646,050, nearly twice the top estimate. Even at that price, many regard the painting as a bargain. In July, Galen Weston, a Canadian billionaire whose family owns Fortnum & Mason, bought the companion picture, “Wind and Sun”. It cost him &pound;914,850.
Comments:
Nowadays, the art market is full of the blundering atmosphere in china. Many paintings ,which have the obvious characters of the great proletarian cultural revolution such as the figure of chairman Mao and the political propagandistic paintings in that period time. Because of the paticularity of the time, the paintings are favor of the collectors. However, there are not few paintings are bid up beyond the auction’s high estimate. As Mr. Mason said that the inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend, including American art market. There are few collectors not regarding painting as a bargain, especially in China. Collecting usually is the privilege of the rich.
Nawdays>nowadays
Atmasphere>atmosphere
Contemporory>contemporary

Main Entry: 2clutter
Function: noun
Date: 1649
1 a
: a crowded or confused mass or collection b
: things that clutter a place
2
: interfering radar echoes caused by reflection from objects (as on the ground) other than the target
3 chiefly dialect :
disturbance, hubbub
Main Entry: re·al·ism
Pronunciation: \ˈrē-ə-ˌli-zəm\
Function: noun
Date: 1817
1
: concern for fact or reality and rejection of the impractical and visionary
2 a
: a doctrine that universals exist outside the mind; specifically : the conception that an abstract term names an independent and unitary reality b
: a theory that objects of sense perception or cognition exist independently of the mind — compare nominalism
3
: the theory or practice of fidelity in art and literature to nature or to real life and to accurate representation without idealization
Main Entry: buoy·ant
Pronunciation: \ˈbȯi-ənt, ˈbü-yənt\
Function: adjective
Date: 1578
: having buoyancy: as a
: capable of floating b
:
cheerful, gay c
: capable of maintaining a satisfactorily high level <a buoyant economy>
— buoy·ant·ly adverb
contemporary
a.当代的，同时代的
n.同时代的人
novelty
n.新奇，新颖，新奇的事物
sentimental
a.
感伤性的，感情脆弱的
Steadfastly
adv.踏实地，不变地
Victorian
n．维多利亚女王时代著名人物
a.维多利亚女王时代的，有维多利亚女王时代特色的
odds
n.可能的机会, 成败的可能性, 优势, 不均, 不平等, 几率, 差别
odd
adj.奇数的, 单数的, 单只的, 不成对的, 临时的, 不固定的, 带零头的, 余的
fetching
a.
动人的，吸引人的，迷人的
Recession
n．撤回，退回，工商业的衰退，不景气
inflation
n.通货膨胀，物价暴涨
sector
n.部门，部分
v.使分成部分，把…分成扇形
odds
n.可能的机会, 成败的可能性, 优势, 不均, 不平等, 几率, 差别
bid up
v.(在拍卖中)竞出高价, 哄价, 抬价
knickknack
n．小玩意儿
anonymous
a.匿名的
conspicuous
a.显著的
if anything 如果有什么区别的话
idyllic
a.
田园短诗的, 牧歌的, 生动逼真的
Thread a needle 穿针引线