Nicholas Faith: Sold. The Rise and Fall of the House of Southby

Sold is the riveting, nonstop story of how the international art world - once The stuffy preserve of the privileged few - became a glamorous, high-stakes corporate arena. From Lord Duveen, the fabled dealer who sold old masters to J.P. Morgan and Andrew Mellon; to Alfred Taubman, the American businessman who juss bought Sotheby's, Sold chronicles the upheaval in the art world and paints an insider's portrait of the man who was at the center of it all-Peter Wilson.
Wilson was the brilliant, audacious former Chairman of Sotheby-'s and the creator of the modern art market. He was that rarest of phenomena: a man who not only transformed a business but also changed the way we look at the world. Like the Pied Yiper, he lured receptive investors during the financially erratic 60s and 70s into believing that art was the only refuge from economic turmoil. In so doing, he revolutionized the wav we look at the business of art.
Until Wilson entered the art scene, art objects were valued primarily for their beauty, their usefulness, or their emotional associations. But he added a new dimension: monetary value, particularly The price The object would fetch in one of Sotheby's salesrooms.