Christie's $400 Million Art

Rarely do three well-known art collections come to the auction block in the same season. Even more rarely does one auction house get to sell them all. Starting Tuesday, Christie's will offer several exceptional works, including a Toulouse-Lautrec painting of a red-haired model, a 1954 Rothko inspired by Matisse's 1911 'Red Studio'; and an abstract de Kooning from 1977 that has had only one owner: the artist's lawyer, Lee V. Eastman. Experts at the auction house are trying not to gloat. Only 18 months ago, Sotheby's was in the limelight when it sold "Boy With a Pipe (The Young Apprentice)," a 1905 painting from Picasso's Rose Period, for $104.1 million - the highest price ever paid for a painting at auction. Now all eyes are on Christie's. In the next two weeks, they expect to sell $300 million to $400 million worth of art. For the full story - click the title Irish Art