Doing your bidding

by Nicola Shepherd

�

A PAINTING recently discovered in an attic in North Wiltshire has just been valued at over �400,000.

�

It features the present owner's grandfather and is a large Australian landscape by Eugene von Guerard. It is the owner's wish to have the painting returned to Australia.

�

It goes to show that the big money around the art world is not only reserved for the likes of advertising supremo, Charles Saatchi.

�

The recent sales of contemporary art at Christie's and Sotheby's coaxed the largest amounts of money out of the European dealers.�Gone are the days when UK salerooms were dominated by those representing American or japanese buyes.

�

At Sotheby's, Charles Saatchi, who made the names of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, by buying their early works when no-one else would, entered a bidding battle with dealer Jay Jopling, reported to be bidding on behalf of Tate Modern.

�

The work in question was an installation by Tracey Emin, done in 1996 called Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made and is a�room full of personal items and paintings.� When she first did it back in 1996, it was then priced at �20,000, but Saatchi won the bidding�war and snatched it for �108,500.

�

Since�her Turner Prize Exhibition, Tracey Emin's works have been fetching huge sums. It was Saatchi who bought her famous My Bed for �150,000.

�

Portrait of Dr Gachet

This is, of course, nothing compared to the huge sums paid in the early nineties for such works as Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr Gachet. Originally given by a private�collector to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, it was sold in 1990 in New York for a staggering �19.1 million.

�

It is still regarded by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's most valuable painting.

�

By contrast, at Christie's recent Surrealism sale, Rene Magritte's Ceci n'est pas une pomme fetched �773,500 - a surprisingly low sum for one of the leading lights of the movement.

�

It is difficult to get into these auctions without a special invitation or pass, such as a press pass. But both Christie's and Sotheby's have comprehensive websites with good quality images of all the relevant works, as do most museums for their important collections. And, you can even bid for paintings online.