For as long as auctions have existed, dealers stuck with unsold stock have anonymously tipped it into an auction and hoped that nobody would notice where it came from—but, of course, everyone does.
Sotheby’s decision to have a sale of Old Master paintings consisting entirely of old dealer stock and cheerfully admitting it is, depending on whom you ask, refreshing, brazen or colossally stupid on the part of the dealers taking part. “On some level, it’s admitting that nobody can sell a picture better than through the auction houses and that art dealers are superfluous,” said one dealer who did not wish to be named. “It’s like slitting your own throat. After this, why would any client buy from you or sell through you?”
Sotheby’s Old Master head George Wachter forcefully refutes this: “It’s fairly rare for a dealer to sell a picture instantly, and most dealers have a backlog of pictures that are unsold for months or years. The dealer may have overpriced it or they may not know the right client for it. It doesn’t undermine a dealer to put a picture into a special auction any more than exhibiting at an art fair.”
Wachter has corralled the sale with stock from an impressive group of dealers, including Richard Green, Robert Noortman, Otto Naumann, Johnny van Haeften, David Koetser and Luca Baroni. Notable for their absence are Colnaghi and Agnews. The sale will be held in New York on 26 January. The auction house is advertising the sale with an aggressiveness remarkable even for Sotheby’s.
December 2005
• This January 2006 auction did not fare well: the total made was $5m, half of what was expected