The Wall Street Journal has a long tour d’horizon of online art buying trends. Here’s their cautionary tale:

Tony Podesta, a Washington lobbyist and contemporary art collector, purchases up to a fifth of his art sight unseen, based on digital photos. But he’s made some miscalculations. He and his wife are now living with a giant Campana Brothers couch made of stuffed animals that was far larger than they anticipated after viewing a JPEG of the image on an auction-house website. “I think we thought it was like a regular-size couch,” he says. “It turned out to be a much more substantial creature.”

Clicking on a Masterpiece (Wall Street Journal)