Christie’s PR team showed that it can work like Navy SEALs today when it placed this gushing story in the Wall Street Journal about its French head of Post War and Contemporary art, Alexandre Carel who impressed his superiors with his ability to bring in big lots at the tender age of 25 years old:

[D]uring a volatile time for art sales [in 2009], he solidified his New York bona fides by bringing in Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Mater” for $5.9 million in the Post-War and Contemporary evening sale and Tamara de Lempicka’s “Portrait de Madame M” (1932) for $6.1 million, a world-record price for the artist, in the Impressionist and Modern evening sale.

“It is easy for people to shine when business is booming, but to come through like that when older and more experienced people were finding business-getting very difficult, is to me a real accomplishment,” said Robert Manley, who runs Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art department in New York. “Before he was even legal drinking age, I felt that he understood the global market almost as well as I did, and I had been doing this for 20 years.”

A Prodigy, Poised to Sell (Wall Street Journal)