ART MARKET WATCH
by Paul Jeromack


Maybe it’s me. But for all the evident beauty of J.M.W. Turner’s Giudeecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio (ca. 1840s), I can’t quite comprehend the reasons it became the most expensive Old Master sold in America at Christie’s New York on Apr. 6, 2006, going for $35,856,000 (with premium) over a presale estimate of $15 million-$20 million, to an American buyer believed to be Las Vegas hotel magnate Steve Wynn. The sale boosted Christie’s 97-lot Old Master sale to a total of $69,496,800, a new record for an auction of Old Master pictures in America.

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