Laptops seem to come in only a few different styles: black, white, and somewhere boring in between. The One Laptop Per Child Charity Auction, December 3rd to December 12th at Design Miami, aims to change that. The online auction, presented by Luminaire, features pieces inspired by laptops, each created by an up and coming contemporary artist.

Ugo Rodinone

Better still, all of the proceeds will go to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), a philanthropic effort to bring computers to the children of developing nations.

Cindy Sherman

In order to provide computers to as many children as possible, OLPC had to create a laptop that was both functional and affordable. The $100 laptop has arrived, and it's a minor revolution. Created for OLPC by Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Lab, and crafted by the trailblazing designer Yves Behar the XO laptop, named for it's bold typographic logo, doesn't need to be plugged in. It runs on solar power and can be recharged by hand. It also connects automatically to the Internet, and to other XO machines, even from remote locations.

Richard Tuttle

Add all these features up, and you start to wonder why no one has tried this before. The auction is a chance to give to a great cause and win a piece of art that is equal parts technical and collectible.

-- Benjamin Popper

Cai Guo-Qiang set a new record for a Chinese contemporary work at auction this week when a set of 14 drawings for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) fetched a double-estimate $9.5 million. The drawings, which Cai created by igniting traces of gunpowder on large sheets of paper resulting in burn patterns and Cy Twombly-ish pockmarks, reference Cai's pyrotechnic performance at the 2001 APEC conference, attended by George W. Bush and then-Chinese chairman Jiang Zemin.

The work was the top lot of a quadruple-estimate $108 million sale at Christie's in Hong Kong--the kickoff of a five-day spending spree and the further rise of commerce and culture in China over communism and censorship.

Born in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, China, in 1957, Cai first came to international attention during his years in Japan (1986-95) with his series "Projects for Extraterrestrials," with the aim of reaching distant galactic audiences but as far as we know confined to earthly attendees in locales like Berlin, Hiroshima, Johannesburg, Oxford, and Vienna. In 2002, an exhibition devoted to Cai's work at the Shanghai Art Museum crowned him the first contemporary artist to be granted a one-person show in a government-run art museum in China.

Now a resident of New York, Cai has left his imprint all over Manhattan with firework extravaganzas from Central Park to the East River. Early next year, the Guggenheim will exhibit the record-setting gunpowder drawings, which sold to an anonymous buyer, in "Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe." Museum-phobes might check out Cai's contribution to Beijing's opening and closing ceremonies at the upcoming Steven Spielberg-approved (maybe) Olympic spectacular.

--Kelly Devine Thomas

The manliest art in the world is on sale this week at Sotheby's annual Sporting Art sale. Although not connected by period, style or form, these paintings and sculptures (a.k.a. a bronze rooster, racehorse, and a tiger attacking a tortoise) are unified in displaying country sports and wildlife. Many of these artists have attempted to capture action in motion with exciting results: horses' legs blur beneath them, dogs scamper or stare creepily at the viewer, and pirates sail a sea that looks like it's alive.

Works available at this year's auction include several paintings by Alfred Munnings, the famous English painter of horses, from Andrew Lloyd Webber's collection, as well as pieces from Rosa Bonheur who is awkwardly described in the press release as "the most famous woman painter of the first three quarters of the nineteenth century."

These paintings would be a great addition to any home, be it a rustic cabin, a ski lodge getaway, or a yacht. 

The auction will take place November 29th.

JAMES WILLIAM GILES
MR. J. A. SANDILAND'S KING CHARLES SPANIELS AT REST AND AT PLAY
signed J. Giles and dated 1842 (lower right)
oil on canvas
Est: 200,000 USD - 300,000 USD

SIR ALFRED J MUNNINGS, Silks and Satins of the Turf, o/b Original Frame
Est: 800,000 - 1,200,000 USD

Montague Dawson, The Brilliant Privateer the U.S.S. Rattlesnake, oil on canvas
Est: 400,000 - 500,000 USD

-- Brian Childs

Phillips de Pury's November 15 evening sale was a fitting end to the $1.7 billion fall auction season, up from $1.4 billion six months ago and less than half that amount two years ago. The crowd was loud and restless, prompting the irrepressible Simon de Pury to shush them a half-dozen times (to no avail). Still, de Pury rode the audience like a first-rate jockey for three-plus hours, bringing in a mid-estimate $42.3 million and $8.2 million to benefit the New Museum. The top lot was Willem de Kooning's 1982 Untitled XVI, an orange, blue, and white Alzheimer's-afflicted aerial canvas, which fetched a tepid $5.8 million (estimate: $5/7 million).

de Kooning's 1982 Untitled XVI

By the end of the two-week marathon, buyers were distracted and boisterous--de Pury repeatedly used inflection and one-on-one direction to overcome the constant din of white noise that filled the Meatpacking District warehouse-cum-salesroom. "Would you like to continue?" a flushed de Pury queried one female bidder. "No? You wouldn't? That's very, very sad."

A delectable European openness and voyeurism pervade Phillips beyond the cheeky see-through partition separating the ladies from the gents in the underground restrooms. Newlyweds Amalia Dayan and Adam Lindemann, the widely reported seller of Jeff Koons's $23.5 million Hanging Heart at Sotheby's, canoodled in a center row, while jeweler Laurence Graff, who paid a combined $24 million for a soup-can picture and a double-image of Elvis Presley by Warhol earlier in the week, mingled and chatted as if bar-hopping with old friends.

(Over the weekend, the New York Times's Carol Vogel kind-a-sort-a reported
that Graff was the buyer of Koons's $11.8 million Diamond (Blue). She also named Damien Hirst as the buyer who paid $33 million for a 1969 Francis Bacon self-portrait; Eli Broad as the winner of Koons's Hanging Heart; and Steven Cohen as the buyer of Francis Bacon's $45.9 million picture of a bullfight.)

Larry Gagosian, who normally makes the round at Phillips, was nowhere to be seen, but Philippe Segalot carried on with his seasonal buying spree, winning a Styrofoam work with footprints by Rudolf Stingel
for an artists-record $1.9 million (estimate: $500/700,000).

Prince's 2002 Registered Nurse

Dealer Andrew Fabricant, spouse of Laura Paulson, Christie's international director for contemporary art, wanted Richard Prince's 2002 Registered Nurse, but lost it to a phone bidder for $4.2 million (estimate: $1.5/2.5 million). Another Prince work dating from 2001 and aptly titled What Can You Do? (estimate: $1.5/2 million) failed to find a buyer when art adviser Kim Heirston was unable to connect with a client on her cell phone.

Eder's 2006 Masturbating Woman Surrounded by Bad Towels

The slim and seemingly proper de Pury displayed his trademark resolve when it came to Martin Eder's 2006 Masturbating Woman Surrounded by Bad Towels. Whereas Christie's Christopher Burge might have smirked and Sotheby's Tobias Meyer might have teased, de Pury unabashedly spanked the title across the room for $157,000.

--Kelly Devine Thomas

It was bound to happen and it did thanks in large part to dealer Larry Gagosian. Jeff Koons usurped Damien Hirst as the most expensive living artist at auction on November 14 thanks to a two-ton suspended hot pink Hanging Heart for which Gagosian paid a record $23.5 million (estimate: $15/20 million). At least Gagosian had competition from two phone bidders for the work unlike the lackluster response to the artist's Diamond (Blue) at Christie's the night before. Both Koons and Hirst belong to Gagosian's stable of what might be described as most-expensive-living-artists-in-waiting. Gagosian also bid Koons's 2001 Pancakes up to $3.3 million before letting a phone bidder have it for $3.4 million hammer, a record for a painting by Koons with buyer's premium ($3.8 million).

Koons's Hanging Heart

But enough about Gagosian, who also paid $2.3 million for Warhol's 1962 Campbell's Beef Noodle (Crushed) (estimate: $1.2/1.8 million). He wasn't the only bidder with deep pockets in the room. Philippe Segalot, restless in his chair and armed with his cell phone, won the top lot of the sale and the season--Francis Bacon's 1969 Second Version of Study for Bullfight No. 1--for $45.9 million (estimate: $35 million-plus), Andy Warhol's 1978-79 Shadow for $7.6 million (estimate: $4.5/6.5 million), and Robert Ryman's 1981 Sector for $4 million (estimate: $2.5/3.5 million). Segalot has a charmingly insistent way of raising his paddle before the hammer comes down--as if signaling the auctioneer that he's not going to take no for an answer.

Francis Bacon's Second Version of Study for Bullfight No. 1

The phone banks took on the air of a tower of Babel as specialists speaking in hushed voices and multiple languages attempted to coax bids from telephone clients and kept them apprised of the action in the room. "$1 million against us; would you like $1.1 million?"

From the front row Valentino unsuccessfully tried to win Warhol's 1986 Self Portrait (Green Camouflage), which sold for a high-estimate $12.3 million, and Mark Rothko's 1968 Untitled, which fetched a double-estimate $7.8 million and whose color scheme matched the peacocked hair of Marc Jacobs, also seated in the front row, and a regular at this week's sales. Gina Gershon strode out of the salesroom in a long black leather coat and Louboutin booties towards the end of the sale.

By the end of the night, Sotheby's had sold 65 of the 71 works on offer and racked up $315.9 million, its highest sales total in its 263-year history. Tobias Meyer, sporting his signature double-breasted suit, nipped and tucked to suggest six-pack abs, stuck around for the post-sale press conference this time, pronouncing the firm's unprecedented sale results "evidence of the hunger that exists across a global community of buyers."

It appears that the sky's still the limit for the art market and particularly for Koons (literally). Next Thursday, a 53-foot tall rendition of his 1986 Rabbit will debut in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Koons has described his stainless steel cast of an inflatable bunny as "a symbol maybe of the Resurrection, of the Playboy bunny, of masturbation." Quite a heady holiday combination.

--Kelly Devine Thomas   

There may not be a better way to celebrate the financial success of adulthood than indulging in adolescent fantasies. How better to let friends and family know that you are having a midlife crisis than purchasing and wearing a vintage, "Who the F--- are the Rolling Stones Anyway?" T-shirt for $800? This is a T-shirt that was handmade and sold by a real roadie. Its value is guaranteed to go up; it's practically a financial investment.

The Christie's Annual Rock and Pop Memorabilia Auction on November 30 features loads of well preserved goodies. Other highlights include Led Zeppelin and Yardbirds T-shirts, a baseball signed by The Beatles and a signed Jimi Hendrix album, Axis: Bold as Love.

David Bowie Spider's From Mars T-shirt

Led Zeppelin 1973 Tour T-shirt

Yardbirds vintage T-shirt

Jimi Hendrix signed album, Axis: Bold as Love

The headlining item of the auction is a Hank Williams songbook with handwritten lyrics to 10 unrecorded songs. Christie's is touting Williams as the "Hillbilly Shakespeare." It is unclear whether fans of the country music and rock 'n' roll icon will be angered or thrilled by this description.

Hank Williams' handwritten lyrics

The auction will take place on November 30 at Christie's Rockefeller Galleries. New York City, are you ready to rock?

--Brian Childs

About a week ago the New York Times ran an article about cognitive dissonance describing how the first evidence of rationalizing irrational behavior has been found in monkeys. Turns out that simians are able to convince themselves they have made the right choice, much like the collectors and dealers who showed up at Christie's on November 13 and spent a collective $325 million--the second highest auction total in the field--in under two hours.

The crowds were out in full force for the occasion and successfully shook off any doubt about the health of the art market after last week's tumultuous results. Sarah Jessica Parker teetered around in a strapless black dress. Marc Jacobs, his shorn hair dyed a cobalt blue and purple, took in the performance with an arched eyebrow from start to finish. By lot 12, eight artist's records had been broken, sparking repeated bouts of applause from the audience. Fifty-one of the 67 lots on offer sold for more than $1 million, prompting one dealer to offer the Times an exuberant soundbite: One million dollars is the new $10 grand.

Despite the celebratory mood and standout prices for Lucian Freud, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, and Mark Rothko (a red, blue, and orange canvas from 1955 fetched an above-estimate $34.2 million), there were several indicators that the market is not quite as ebullient as it appeared a few months ago. Several top-end works failed to meet their estimates but broke records regardless. Jeff Koons's Diamond (Blue), with an unpublished estimate of $20 million, was saved from near-failure by a sole bidder--dealer Larry Gagosian, who has been funding and selling the artist's Celebration series, including the giant blue bauble. Gagosian paid an artist's record $11.8 million to reclaim it. Gerhard Richter's 1963 Dusenjager likewise attracted limp bidding, selling for an artist's record $11.2 million against a $10/15 million estimate.

Freud's Ib and her husband, 1992

Warhol's Liz, 1963

de Kooning's Untitled XXIII, 1977

At the beginning of the sale, auctioneer Christopher Burge disclosed that interested parties might be bidding on six lots in the sale, including Freud's 1992 Ib and Her Husband, which sold for a record $19.3 million (unpublished estimate: $15 million-plus); Warhol's 1963 Liz, consigned by Hugh Grant who paid $3.5 million for it six years ago, which sold for $23.5 million (estimate: $25/35 million); and Willem de Kooning's 1977 Untitled XXIII, which fetched $19.9 million (estimate: $16/19 million). In other words, the works involved third-party guarantors, meaning the firm effectively pre-sold the work to an outside party who provided a guarantee to the seller in return for a portion of the winnings if the selling price exceeded the guaranteed sum. Third-party guarantees are controversial because the guarantor, whose identity is not disclosed, is permitted to bid on the work during the auction. If a third-party guarantor ends up winning the property for a price that exceeds the minimum guarantee, their share in the upside amounts to a decrease in the buyer's premium.

Cognitive dissonance indeed.

--Kelly Devine Thomas

To survive the overheated contemporary art market, you'll need a little escapism.  The perfect antidote is the Natural History, Travel, Atlases and Maps Auction tomorrow at Christie's London.  You can find everything that evokes the mystery of far off lands, from exotic botanical illustrations to elaborate maps to first editions of classic travel books.

'Abduh Muhammad with Muhammad 'Ali Effendi Sa'oudi late 19th/early 20th Century.  Part of larger lot; Estimate: $24,000 - 36,000

John Speed.  The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain. Part of 1676 edition of Prospect.  Estimate: $80,000-120,000

William Perry Fogg. Arabistan: or the land of  "The Arabian Nights" First edition, 1875. Estimate: $3,000-4,000

From the Muhammad 'Ali Effendi Sa'oudi lot.  A fine collection of rare early photographs and negatives of Makkah and Madinah (1904 and 1908), together with related publications.  Estimate: $80,000-120,000.

There's a lot that includes a fine photograph of the traveler and Egyptian intellectual 'Abduh Muhammad, who corresponded with Tolstoy.  Or a map that proudly displays 'a prospect of the most famous parts of the world.'  With the demise of the Concorde you may not be able to make it to London in time for the auction.  Fear not, one good thing about living in the modern world: you can bid by phone.

--David Coggins

The celebrated gallery owner Allan Stone (1932-2006), gave collecting a good name. He was early champion of artists like Joseph Cornell, Wayne Thiebaud, John Chamberlain, and Willem de Kooning, and bought and sold their work as their value soared.  But his acquisitive appetites extended far beyond the gallery walls into the tribal and folk art, Bugatti furniture, and even wooden cigar store Indians.

De Kooning's Man, 1967.  Est. $5-7 million

Thiebaud's Hot Dog With Mustard, 1964.  Est. $600-800,000

Franz Kline's Untitled, 1951, 2-3 million

Allan Stone's home before the work was taken to Christie's

More from Allan Stone's home

The wonderful scope of Stone's world is clear from the auction at Christie's on November 12, where masterworks from artists like Franz Kline sit side by side with Congolese fetish figures.  Stone never lost his discerning eye, a Gaudi wooden screen from the Casa Mila is the perfect meeting of form and function.

--David Coggins

It was a bad sign when Larry Gagosian didn't show up for Sotheby's November 7 sale of Impressionist and modern art and things only got worse from there. A stalwart Tobias Meyer, in a double-breasted suit so snug it could sub for crime-fitting attire (Batman came to mind), couldn't compensate for the lack of bidding in the room for the firm's aspiring blockbusters. Are we all done? It was a rhetorical question for which Meyer repeatedly needed no answer.

Sotheby's sale was proof that one less major bidder at an auction can make the difference between a record price and a buy-in (i.e., bombed to the point of not selling). So far the big bidders and buyers this season have been Franck Giraud and Phillipe Segalot, two former Christie's executives who went into business together six years ago. The leonine-maned Segalot is Francois Pinault's  primary art adviser. Shortly after Pinault's acquisition of Christie's in 1998, Segalot was appointed Christie's worldwide head of contemporary art while Giraud became international director of 19th and 20th century art.

Giraud, bidding for a client on his cell phone, was the underbidder (i.e., runner-up) of the record $33.6 million for Matisse's 1937 L'Odalisque, harmonie bleue at Christie's. At Sotheby's, Segalot persistently bid, at Giraud's nudging, on Egon Schiele's 1917 Self-Portrait with Checkered Shirt, against an unknown bidder whose silky coif rivaled John Edwards's. Segalot/Giraud ultimately won it for $11.4 million. The French duo also went on to win Picasso's enormous Tete de Femme (Dora Maar) sculpture for $29 million.

Among the major casualties of the night were Picasso's 1931 La Lampe (estimate: $25/35 million) and Van Gogh's 1890 The Fields (Wheat Fields) (estimate: $28/35 million). It can't help when the New York Times calls a work shopped around; not to mention a tough sell as was the case with Gauguin's 1892 Te Poipoi (Le Matin), which depicts a robust squatting Tahitian woman, apparently relieving herself, with her dress hiked up around her waist. The painting elicited only one phone bidder, Joseph Lau of Hong Kong, who paid $39 million (estimate: $40/60 million) for the work and requested that Sotheby's announce at the post-sale press conference that he was the buyer.

Gauguin's Te popoi (Le matin), 1892

In total, the Sotheby's sale achieved $269.7 million, nearly $100 million less than the sale's lowest expectation. Sotheby's Impressionist and modern co-chairman David Norman was loath to blame the results on the health of the market, chalking it up instead to over-aggressive estimates. "I am not at all ready to read the results as a correction of the market," Norman said at the press conference, from which Meyer was notably absent while newly minted Sotheby's exec Lisa Dennison wandered around looking stunning and stunned.

Van Gogh's The fields (Wheat Fields), 1890

Of the Van Gogh, for which the firm had offered a guarantee to the seller (meaning Sotheby's kind-a-sort-a already bought it), Norman remarked, "It's a great picture that we are prepared to own and be patient with."  In other words: anyone wanna buy a Van Gogh?

--Kelly Devine Thomas 

Christie's sale of Impressionist and modern art on November 6 was very big. There were 91 lots, which took the debonair and astutely alert Christopher Burge some 2.5 hours to magistrate. By lot 47 (Amedeo Modigliani's 1916 Portrait du sculpteur Oscar Miestchaninoff, which fetched a near-artist's record $30.8 million) I could barely keep the numbers straight--opening bids, increments, order bids, phone bids, saleroom bids, underbids, winning bids, not to mention paddle numbers.

It was about that time that I started fantasizing that there was a Christopher Guest script taking place behind the black curtained stage where men in white shirts and black aprons could be glimpsed placing and removing paintings from the turntable. Delusional thinking perhaps but it seemed like a ripe scenario for Eugene Levy.

Much of the audience must have felt the same way, as many of them made their exodus eight lots later with still nearly half of the sale to go. Nothing personal and par for the course--at auctions dealers and collectors (physically) move on when they've had their fill, they don't hang around out of a sense of politeness. This isn't church or the opera; the only decorum is to air-kiss your peers and pat each other on the back on your way out.

Matisse's L'Odalisque, harmonie bleue (1937)

Larry Gagosian hung on longer than most, taking his leave during lot 81 (a pedestrian Monet being sold by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art); he took home Picasso's Homme a la pipe for $16.8 million perhaps for a new Russian client. Christie's owner Francois Pinault stayed the course, looking down on the sale from a skybox window where he could be seen leaning into an outstretched arm as if he were trying to make a move on someone. Overall the crowd seemed unaffected (although perhaps secretly relieved) by the history-making potential of the event--the auction brought in $394.9 million, the second highest total in auction history, surpassing any of last season's offerings, and achieving record prices, including $33.6 million for Matisse's 1937 L'Odalisque, harmonie bleue. Big business CEOs might be dropping like flies, but the art market is still preening.

--Kelly Devine Thomas

Lisa Dennison, former director of the Guggenheim in New York, is now firmly ensconced at Sotheby's, and superdealer Larry Gagosian is back from last month's attempt to woo Russian clients in a Moscow mall. The scene may have changed somewhat since Christie's and Sotheby's boasted record-breaking sales in New York last May, but auction specialists expect that the two-week New York marathon of back-to-back Impressionist, modern and contemporary sales, which gets underway this week, might result in close to $2 billion worth of art trading hands.

The fall New York auction season arrives after a Grand Tour summer for the art world, which might have blissfully ignored the subprime mortgage disaster had it not been for its knee-buckling effect on hedge funds. Thank goodness for petroleum profits and the draw of a weak dollar.

Femme accroupie au costume turc (Jacqueline)

In order to secure eight-figure trophy consignments by Gauguin, Van Gogh, Matisse, and Picasso, this season Christie's and Sotheby's reportedly issued $1 billion worth of guarantees, an undisclosed sum promised to a seller regardless of the outcome of the sale, kind of like buying a horse and betting on it. According to a recent Sotheby's SEC filing, for the last 14 years guarantees (both parties typically participate in any excess above the promised sum) have proven to be a moneymaker.

Still, the markups on some works this season seem high. Two years ago Pissarro's Four Seasons, a suite of four landscapes, attracted a single bidder at Christie's who was willing to pay $8.9 million. This time around, Christie's produced a separate catalog for the paintings in addition to offering the seller a guarantee and a $12/18 million estimate. In light of the sale of Damien Hirst's Lullaby Spring, one of four pill cabinets belonging to Hirst's seasonal allegory, which reset the contemporary art world when it fetched 9.6 million pounds ($19.2 million) in London in June, perhaps the estimate will seem perversely modest to someone.

Next week the stakes get even higher. Christie's expects that the Warhol Liz that Hugh Grant paid $3.5 million for six years ago will fetch $25 to $35 million. (For a more affordable, albeit less illustrious Warhol, check out the artist's take on Conrad Black, being sold at Christie's day sale in order to help pay creditors of Black's former private company, Ravelston, Corp, Ltd, estimate: $100/200,000).

Reports of $100 million-dollar skull sales aside, both Christie's and Sotheby's are betting that Jeff Koons can surpass Hirst as the most expensive living artist at auction. Christie's is offering Diamond (Blue) and Sotheby's is selling Hanging Heart, two large-scale sculptures from Koons's mythic Celebration series, which purportedly set out to induce a sense of childhood wonderment and are estimated to fetch in excess of $20 million each.

Diamond (Blue)

Koons has said that he produced the Celebration series to communicate with his estranged son (now age 15) during a well-publicized custody battle during the early 1990s with his ex-wife, the Italian porn star Ilona Staller, known as La Cicciolina. In quizzically Koonsian fashion, the artist has described the four prongs surrounding the eight-foot-tall, seven-foot-wide Diamond as "sperm attacking an ovum. The facets of the diamond are the egg in the process of being fertilized." So much for innocence.

--Kelly Devine Thomas

Why voyage dangerously into the Amazon in search of new animal species when you can stay in the comfort of your living room and simply bid for the rights to name a new butterfly yourself? That's exactly what happened last week, when the Florida Museum of Natural History and iGavel auctioned off the right to name a new species of butterfly that was discovered earlier this year by a couple of researchers from the University of Florida.

Male

Female

While many biologists would relish this chance of enduring renown, George Austin and Andrew Warren selflessly opted to auction the naming rights of the vividly colored species of owl butterfly to raise money for continued research on Mexican butterflies. The name, which has yet to be announced, fetched $34,000. It's a relatively low price for immortality, even in biology textbooks.

--David Coggins

It was no surprise that Burgundy was the star of the Acker, Merrall & Condit auction "The Man With the Golden Cellar" on October 26-27, but young vintages made an unusually strong showing, and not just the celebrated 1999: three bottles of 2001 Romanee-Conti went for $15,000, and six bottles of 1996 Musigny from G. Roumier for $19,000.

After the dust settled, the two-day tally was a spectacular $15.5 million.

Courtesy of Acker Merrall & Condit

This was not only the biggest auction of the year, it was the second-most lucrative of all time, trailing only Acker Merrall & Condit's "The Cellar" from 2006.

The auction started Friday afternoon at Le Bernardin with a wine tasting that had seasoned buyers jockeying for pours of Leroy Clos de Vougeot (my favorite), Dugat-Py Charmes Chambertin, Roty Chambertin Tres Vieielles Vignes, all 1999s. Oh, and there were bottles of 1989, 1998 and 2000 Haut Brion, but the crowd was at the Burgundy table.

Courtesy of Acker Merrall & Condit

And as we took our seats in the main dining room all 100 of us were treated to a civilizing round of 1996 Salon Champagne, then John Kapon, the auctioneer, Acker Merrall & Condit scion, and the single most important figure in the secondary wine market today, pulled two open magnums of 1998 Petrus from behind the dais and sent them around the room. I counted four glasses of wine standing in front of Kapon; let the bidding begin.

I shared a table with the amiable and generous Gorky Rahman, a wine buyer who ordered a bottle of 1983 Chateau de Beaucastel, a lean Chateauneuf-du-Pape with a luscious body, and we enjoyed dinner: yellowfin tuna and a foie gras tartine, white tuna poached in olive oil, sea bass and wagyu with lemon brown butter. He was stunned by the prices younger wines were commanding--a case of the 1989 Haut Brion, the same as at the tasting, went for $17,000; six bottles of 2004 DRC Montrachet, the world's greatest white, went for $17,000 to a bidder in the room.

Courtesy of Acker Merrall & Condit

The night ended with older Burgundies, and another round with a magnum by Kapon, this time a 1954 Petrus. That is, that's how the auction ended: many adjourned to Cru, the unofficial Acker Merrall & Condit clubhouse, where they pulled out bottles from their own cellars and tasted deep into the night.

The next afternoon was more somber, and sober, though bidders were greeted with a glass of 1999 Dom Perignon. Kapon is a unique auctioneer who believes in selling smaller lots: instead of a case positioned as a trophy, he splits the 12 bottles into, say, four lots of three bottles each, with the winner of the first lot having the option to take the entire case. Some times they do, but mostly they don't, which means four times the work for Kapon (this weekend he auctioned 2,000 lots, which took 12 hours of nonstop talking); it also means fewer headline-grabbing lots selling for $150,000. But it attracts bidders who might pay a premium for a few bottles but for whom a case is out of reach, such as the four sets of three bottles of 1999 DRC Romanee-Conti that went for about $25,000 each.

It adds up. A Methuselah of 1999 Romanee-Conti went for $127,000, a shocking sum even for this rare of a large format; six magnums of 1999 DRC La Tache went for $58,000; even a case of G. Roumier 1999 Musigny punched above its weight, and went for $48,000.

Courtesy of Acker Merrall & Condit

The way the 1999 Burgundies moved expect more to come on the market next year. And expect a run on the 2005, arguably the best year for Burgundy ever; this auction stopped with 2004, which makes me wonder what's still in the Golden Cellar.

-- Oliver Schwaner-Albright

In an era not too long ago, travel epitomized glamour. Globetrotters dressed up, carried leather trunks, and were soothed by the knowledge that the U.S. dollar was the strongest currency in world. Alas. The upcoming auction of travel posters at Swann Auction House on November 12 captures that bygone age, when you didn't have to pack your shaving cream in a plastic baggie.   

-Fly to South America in a zeppelin?  Why not. The Graf Zeppelin, which flew around the world in 1929, though it was the sister ship of the Hindenburg.

-You don't associate Ireland's Aer Lingus with technological advances?  It wasn't always so.  In 1954 they were very proud of their Viscount, the world's first turbo prop airliner.

-The Darjeeling Limited isn't the first great advertisement for India.  This "Visit India" poster is the best graphic spot a country could want.

-If you're open to dangerous propositions in a foreign land after you've had a little too much to drink, rest assured that you're part of a long tradition of just that sort of behavior in Pamplona.

--David Coggins