finished with apt hunting, sat in all day yesterday looking for cheap flights to greece and generally working on the computer. didn’t get out enough, so didn’t sleep well. becca (a dog mom who is here for a year from LA) invited me to go to the auction house called “DROULT” with her today. am thrilled that i made myself go. it was so interesting!
becca has had great success. she first went with walter who is a dog dad from the park. i don’t think i have met him yet. walter apparently makes his living as an art buyer.
becca saw a painting that was attributed to jean dufy. she went to the viewing session then went home and did some research online. she found that the better jean dufy’s were selling for 25-35K at sothebys/christies. this one was valued at approx 1000-2000. she discussed it with her husband who gave her the ok to go up to 2000. it was up for sale on the day of the royal wedding, and she knew that the sessions would be emptier because of it. she got the painting for 2000, promptly brought it over to the official jean dufy expert down the block, who gave it a seal of approval (for 700 euros). she figures she could get 10-20K for it. she went and got it re-framed for almost the same amount as she paid. it seems so ballsy! we are all a chatter in the dog park about it. on saturday at dinner she said she was coming up monday and i said i wanted to come too. i sort of forgot about it, but she sent me an email. so i came up today to take a look. it is a whole world.
Droult is the facility, the auction center. it is a building where different auction companies rent a room to hold their sale. there are maybe 8-12 rooms, each holding auctions of different types. there are rug auctions, furniture auctions, art auctions. in fact, it’s much more specialized than that. the auction we were going to was impressionist to 20th century art. there was even an auction of vintage hermes clothing. though some auctions are of someone’s estate – so a general collection of things. it could be a cheaper way of furnishing if you like antiques.
i looked on the website for the particular auction we would attend. i saw real impressionist paintings – not by the big names of course, but by respected googleable ( a new word!) names. some beautiful paintings valued at 200-300 euros! gosh, that’s cheaper than MY paintings. maybe i could go buy an impressionist painting. not today. today i am just going to look and see how things are done. there are people lining the reception counter and people looking at the stuff and looking up the price. there was a 19th century to contemporary painting sale that we are going to. but there was also a room for rugs, a room for silver pieces, a room for one modern artist, a room of fancy furniture and stuff. i got to get up close and look at the paintings. there were some very nice paintings. one called “the spaniard” was quite small but beautifully painted with amazing detail for such a small format. the light was good. i would buy that painting. i think it was valued at 2K.
at noon, they all closed their doors for lunch. everyone went outside. all along the neighboring streets are shops for appraising, buying, selling, stamp collecting, furniture, asian arts. it is a whole system and society. i guess, some local shops go in and buy stuff daily from the auctions and then offer it for sale. it’s a whole society and world in itself. there were numerous cafes and restaurants nearby, filled with people working around the auctions. they all knew each other. according to becca, they were all having affairs with each other too. i was looking forward to the actual auction.
i met my becca in the hall outside the room where our auction would be held. it was 1:30. other people were waiting. when it got close to 2:00, people got up and stood in front of the door. when the doors finally opened, people rushed in, scrambling for seats. then there was an arrangement reminiscent of a courtroom. there was a a high desk where the “judge” sat in the center of the front. he had 2 women sitting to his left and a lower desk to his right where a man and a young woman sat. on one side of the room there was a low desk where 4 people sat facing the center, and one man sat facing away from the front. the “judge” was the auctioneer, and the man to his right was the “expert”. the expert announced each painting, with the “lot” number, the title of the work, artist, either attributed to or definitively, the value range and the starting price which was around half of the lowest value. i was confused at first because sometimes he would say “we’ll start the bidding at” and then he’d rattle off a few numbers – as if he was changing his mind at what to start the bidding at. he’d say “we’ll start the bidding at 100, 150, 200.” plus, he would be bidding on things. in fact, he was bidding for the people who had submitted bids on paper ahead of time. he had a bit of a speech impediment too. the auctioneer would go very quickly taking bids. and there was none of this “going once, going twice and gone!” stuff. he would just hold his gavel up look around the room and then hammer it down if he didn’t see any interest. then on to the next item. but sometimes he would hold his gavel up and cajole the crowd . “it’s a gift [because it’s so cheap]”. one time he looked at one of the people who had been bidding but was giving up, and said “are you sure? are you really sure? c’mon how about 400?”
there would be people talking at the same time, because as soon as an item was sold, the next item was being described as the old one was getting the credit card of the buyer. there’s no registering beforehand. when you have successfully bought an item you hand over your credit card and get a paddle with your number as your id. the guy sitting on the side is writing down the item number and the id of the buyer. the others were taking telephone calls for people bidding on things remotely, many of them speaking other languages. it was amazing how cheap some of the paintings went for. in fact, some did not sell at all. if there were no bids, the auctioneer would drop the price a little. but if there were still no bids, he would move onto the next item.
becca specifically went to the auction on the day of the royal wedding. she was right in thinking there would be very few people there. she has a name for a good portion of the clientelle. she calls them “doctors wives”. that’s when she got her dufy. one of the paintings i liked was a little “modern” painting – flattened shapes of a vase on other shapes. it was actually nice. it sold for 80 euros. my usual line is that i could paint it myself. but these paintings were impressionist paintings and they were really very different feeling from anything i would do.
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