As I write this, the Euro is plummeting to a four-year low as an aftermath to the bailout of the Greek economy last week, and a close friend’s brother working in banking in New York keeps calling to sound the alarm bells about markets crashing. It is difficult to imagine that there is a crisis when looking at recent results in the auction world. Earlier this month a rare Picasso from 1932 entitled nu au plateau de sculpteur (picured) attained $106.5 million at Christie’s New York, a new world record for a work of art at auction. This result dethroned the same record set three months earlier at Sotheby’s London of £65 million for Alberto Giacometti’s sculpture L’homme qui marche, rumored to have been acquired by Lilly Safra, widow of the banking magnate Joseph Safra. Jasper Johns’ iconic Flag from the Michael Crichton collection attained $28,642,500 at Christie’s New York a few days later. It won’t be long before one of the two auction giants holds another sale which will undoubtedly set another outlandish record. So where is the crisis?

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