Art: Adoration of the £

When the late Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor, second Duke of Westminster and one of the world’s richest landlords, died six years ago, he left holdings estimated as high as $168 million (e.g., 200,000 acres of farm land; seven residences; Annacis Island near Vancouver; 285 acres of choice London real estate, including the U.S. embassy site on Grosvenor Square). The duke’s byword: “The Grosvenors never sell land.” In 1921 he had unloaded Gainsborough’s Blue Boy and Reynolds’ Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse for $774,000 to pay off back taxes. Last week his heirs, faced with some $30 million in death duties (of which more than $21 million has already been paid to date), put up for auction 18 of the duke’s paintings, plus the Westminster Tiara, so encrusted with diamonds that his peers considered it downright vulgar.

Prize Catch. Like maharajahs eager for a tiger hunt, the big dealers and collectors came flocking to the humid, glass-roofed main salesroom of London’s famed Sotheby’s (pronounced Sutherbees) auction house. Prize catch of the lot was clearly Peter Paul Rubens’ Adoration of the Magi. A 10 ft. 9¼ in. by 8 ft. panel painted by Rubens at the peak of his powers in 1634 for Louvain’s Convent of the Dames Blanches, it is considered by dealers not only the best Rubens in Britain but the most important old master to be put on the block at Sotheby’s in over 30 years.

After all the months of speculation, the climax came so fast only the experts could follow the action. Sotheby’s Chairman Peter Wilson, forehead beaded from strain and the heat of his serge coat and striped pants, started the bidding by asking diffidently: “Shall I say £20,000?” A voice promptly sang out “£100,000.” Bidding with lips, eyebrows, fingers and catalogues, dealers whooped the price upward at the rate of £5,000 every four seconds.

Past £200,000, only four bidders were still left battling:

U.S.’s Richest Man J. Paul Getty, London Dealer Geoffrey Agnew, Manhattan Dealer Julius Weitzner, and Leonard Koetser, a calm London dealer who had not even put in a bid until the price reached £160,000. At the £250,000 mark, only Agnew and Koetser were still slugging. Then, with Koet-ser’s 15th and final nod, two minutes after the opening bid. Auctioneer Wilson knocked down the painting for £275,000 ($770,000)—highest price ever recorded for a single painting at public auction.

Best Year. Dealer Koetser rose to take a modest bow. “I was prepared to gomuch higher,” he admitted. “I think the value was much more than the price.” Koetser was far from through for the day. In all, he bought eight paintings, two of them—an El Greco for $201,600 and a Frans Hals for $134,400—for the same client who had commissioned him to buy the Rubens. As to who the unknown collector was, Koetser would only say that he was “definitely a British collector,” male, who had no other

Rubens but a house big enough to hang it in. The British press, who had been worrying out loud that such a “national” treasure would be snatched away by a rich American, let out a patriotic cheer.

On the auction, the Westminster estate garnered $1,537,788 (including $308,000 paid by Manhattan Diamond Merchant Harry Winston for the Westminster Tiara). Sotheby’s, by throwing in 71 lesser canvases, raised the total sale to $2,075,184. Glowing London dealers, cheered by a series of record prices, felt that the auction was a powerful boost toward restoring old masters to their proper place in the art market, a position recently obscured in the scramble for easier-to-get impressionists and postimpressionists. Overall, this has been the greatest year ever for art auctions on both sides of the Atlantic. Sotheby’s can look forward to its first $14 million season: Manhattan’s Parke-Bernet has also registered its all-time high: $10,208,879.