Going Once: 250 Years of Culture, Taste and Collecting at Christie’s

ISBN: 978 0 7148 7202 5

Phaidon

£39.95

What better way to celebrate two hundred and fifty years as a leading art business than through the two hundred and fifty objects selected for this book.  It is a wonderful survey of these remarkable sales and the high prices achieved whether for a 3,000-year-old Assyrian frieze or Dorothy’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz. Paintings, furniture, gold and silver, sculpture, wine, even a London Routemaster bus are included.  One feature I like is that as well as giving the original sale price they also give today’s equivalent value.

This is a great book to dip into time and time again as there is much to learn and enjoy from it.

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