Art: The Victim's Guide

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Everyone knows the price of a hot dog —but who can estimate the value of a dog bed once owned by Marie Antoinette? Any housewife knows what to pay for a dozen oranges—but how much must she spend for a Basket of Fruit by Cézanne? The price of good art and antiques tends to fluctuate by nations, by year, by fashion, by taxes and by trickery.

What art costs was the problem faced by Howard L. Katzander and his wife, both members of the editorial staff of the New York Times,* when they bought a house in uptown Manhattan and blithely decided to fill it with antiques. Prices in the antique shops turned out to be unthinkable for them, so the Katzanders started going to auctions. The more they went, the more convinced they became that the buyer is often a helpless victim of chance simply because he does not know what is going on.

"For instance," says Katzander, "French paintings now sell in Germany for a fraction of what they sell for in London. Paris or New York. This is something the buyer should know." Katzander thinks that buyers should also know such things as how to read an art catalogue. In one London auction house, if a painting is listed as "by John Constable, R.A.," it means that the house experts are confident of its authenticity. As confidence wanes, the listing changes—to plain "John Constable,'' then to "J. Constable." and finally to an abrupt "Constable.''

The Katzanders also learned that auc tions set basic price trends for the whole art market, and this inspired them to found a newsletter, called International Art Market, that would guide buyers by supplying prices paid at as many auction houses as possible throughout the world. The first issue shows that about the only bearish thing on the market during the past two months has been armor. At Christie's in London, a recent sale of 358 items brought in less than $34,000; at the Palais Galliera in Paris, on the other hand, someone paid $48,000 for a small Louis XVI table. In the past year, the prices of Flemish, French and Italian Renaissance tapestries have doubled; in the past two years, the price of French 18th century furniture has quadrupled. And for the housewife or hot-dog connoisseur who really cares, a niche a chien made for Mark Antoinette brought $15,375 in Paris, and a Cézanne watercolor, Panier de Fruits, went for $16,000 in New York.