Sotheby's

Anyone got $4.2 million to spare? This rare and exquisite 14th Century Yuan dynasty blue and white baluster vase went under the hammer at Sotheby's New York today (Lot 61), as part of a week of auctions of Asian art and ceramics. I'm told there are only four such examples in the world. This work is highly prized because the blue colouring, derived from Persian cobalt, predates the more common Ming dynasty blue; the bold shape and fine detail of the peony scroll makes it highly valued. The piece was expected to fetch around $4 million. Having never been to an auction, it was really quite fascinating to watch the whole process. Bids started at $3 million and, after six bids, it was sold to a telephone bidder for $4.2 million. The whole thing lasted less than a minute. I more or less lost interest after that, because frankly, after you've seen bids for $4.2 million dollars, a wooden brush pot for $7,000 doesn't seem so exciting.

But I was trying to figure out the economics of bidding, and how people put a monetary value to these things (I gave up thinking how it is that people have a quarter of a million dollars to spend on a lobed brush washer). The whole thing seems very abstract, as in the end, it really all comes down to how much you're willing to pay for an object. There appears to be no metric with which to judge the inherent value of the artistic skill, age and rarity of an object, other than the amount of money someone is willing to pay for it. Money seems to be the one universal metric, probably because everyone understands it and because some people have more of it than others. That is, things have greater value if fewer people can afford them, which seems very strange. I, for example, can appreciate the skill involved in these things when explained to me, but I doubt I'd actually want to own any of them, even though I don't consider them to be valueless. It also makes me wonder whether things would cease to have value if everyone were equally endowed. Thoughts anyone?