Real Connoisseurs Buy Privately

It’s nice to know that even in at the high end of the art market, there’s still a little headroom for condescension. In this case, Bloomberg lets a London dealer sniff about his £100m show of German Expressionist art being sold by Benedict Solverman:

The works are being shown by the 22 Bond Street dealer Richard Nagy and will be sold privately next year to fund literacy programs. “It’s a collection for connoisseurs, rather than auction buyers,” says Nagy, explaining why Silverman, who has been a customer for 20 years, decided to sell privately. […]

Schiele’s 1918 allegory “The Round Table,” showing the short-lived painter sharing a symbolic “last supper” with artist friends, has a U.K. valuation of 30 million pounds.

Otto Dix’s 1923 painting “Self-Portrait with a Model” will be priced at about 18 million pounds.

Gustav Klimt’s 1911 posthumous portrait “Ria Munk,” depicting an Austrian industrialist’s daughter who committed suicide at the age of 24, is valued about 15 million pounds.

Warhol Joins $50 Million Schiele in Fighting Frieze (Bloomberg)