Inside the utterly irrational modern art market

The same $142.4 million spent on a Francis Bacon triptych at Christie's would have funded India's entire Mars orbiter mission — twice

Christie's
(Image credit: (Ramin Talaie/Getty Images))

ART DEALER CHRISTOPHE Van de Weghe strode into Christie's auction house in New York City with orders from a mystery client. His mission that night, Nov. 12, 2013, was to buy a specific painting — for which the client was willing to pay an astonishingly high price. "He really wanted to have it," Van de Weghe recalls. The work was called Apocalypse Now.

By the end of the night, the auction at Rockefeller Center would make history many times over. As auctioneer Jussi Pylkkänen's hammer fell on lot after lot, the figures posted on the screen behind him were as eye-popping as the works on display. A Francis Bacon triptych set an auction record for any artwork, at $142.4 million. Jeff Koons's sculpture Balloon Dog (Orange), at $58.4 million, set a high mark for a living artist. An Andy Warhol picture of a Coca-Cola bottle sold for $57.3 million, pushing the overall take that night to $692 million, at the time the biggest single sale of art ever.

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