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An auction at Sotheby’s raises $676m
苏富比一场拍卖成交额达6.76亿美元
When sotheby’s raised the gavel on the season’s biggest art auction on November 15th the sellers, Harry and Linda Macklowe, did not arrive as one to watch the proceedings from the discreet skybox above the auction floor, as those disposing of a collection often do. The couple can hardly stand to be in the same room together. Their divorce, after nearly six decades of marriage, was so contentious that in 2018 a judge ordered them to sell 65 of their magnificent 20th-century artworks and split the proceeds.
苏富比本季度最大的艺术品拍卖会于11月15日如期举槌，藏品委托人麦克罗威夫妇（哈里和琳达）并没有像一般的委托方那样，在拍卖大厅上方的私密包厢里观看拍卖过程。这对夫妇几乎无法忍受共处一室。近60年的婚姻生活过后，他们的离婚引起了轩然大波，以至于2018年，法官命令将他们名贵的艺术品收藏中65件出自上世纪的藏品出售，然后平分收益。
Death, debt and divorce are the auction market’s traditional catalysts. Sotheby’s won this particular deal by guaranteeing the Macklowes at least $600m from the sale. At the time it was agreed such a fulsome promise, the biggest ever offered to a client by an auction house, seemed to hark back to a bullish age before covid-19 roiled the art market. But Sotheby’s panache was well judged: the evening brought in $676m including fees, to which the proceeds of a second auction in May will be added. For beyond the Macklowe sale, the art market is changing, in three important ways.
死亡、债务和离婚通常是推动拍卖市场不断变化的原因。苏富比(Sotheby’s)向麦克罗威夫妇保证成交额不会低于6亿美元，从而获得了这次特殊的拍卖机会。这是拍卖行有史以来向客户给出的最大诚意，在拍卖行许下这种过度承诺之时似乎让人回想起艺术品市场在疫情肆虐前的牛市行情。不过苏富比这次的派头耍对了，拍卖当晚的成交额为6.76亿美元，再加上5月举办第二次拍卖将获得的收益报酬。除了麦克罗威收藏拍卖以外，艺术品市场还在三个重要方面发生变化。
It started even before the pandemic. The takeover of Sotheby’s by Patrick Drahi, a French telecoms and cable entrepreneur, for $3.7bn in the summer of 2019 looked with hindsight like an error when covid struck nine months later. Lockdowns shuttered auctioneers and galleries the world over. Art collectors quickly decided that 2020 was a bad time to sell.
这些变化甚至早在大流行之前就开始了。法国电信和有线电视行业大亨帕特里克·德拉希(Patrick Drahi)在2019年夏天以37亿美元收购了苏富比(Sotheby’s)，9个月之后疫情爆发。在那时看来，这倒像是一个错误的决定。封城使得世界各地的拍卖行和画廊都关闭了。艺术品收藏家们很快断定，2020年不是出售藏品的好时机。
