The shark's last move

tauringhuang.

Mr Hirst is as famous for being rich and famous as he is for his art, which may be part of his appeal. Certainly Sotheby’s hopes so. The artist and the auction house have made a concerted effort to market the sale on YouTube, making presentations at the Oberoi hotel in New Delhi, in Kiev, the Hamptons and Aspen, Colorado. The fact that the record price for a Hirst at auction, £9.65m for a medicine cupboard called “Lullaby Spring”, was paid last year by Sheikha al-Mayassa al-Thani, the 25-year-old daughter of the ruler of Qatar, showed Sotheby’s this was the right route to take. All this week select British and foreign collectors have been given private viewings of the sale and entertained to lunch in Sotheby’s smart new dining rooms.

The auction house is keen to head off any notion that the sale might not succeed. A report last month that White Cube was sitting on 200 unsold works by Mr Hirst has been stamped on as “not up to date”. The leaked stocklist on which the report was based, the gallery declares, includes “items from Mr Hirst’s personal collection that are not for sale, two pieces from the last show that are being kept for museums and at least 30 pieces that have not been made and perhaps never will be.” Similarly, saleroom analyses showing that the number of Hirsts that fail to sell at auction always climbs as recession bites (30% of the pieces in the year after September 11th 2001, and more pieces this year than last) are brushed aside.

On September 5th Sotheby’s opened the sale to public view. A week later it threw a party for 1,500 people, serving champagne and foie gras wrapped in gold leaf. On the invitation the dress code was “glamorous”. “Our biggest challenge,” says Mr Barker, “is to match the scale of Damien’s ambition.” For that, Sotheby’s is killing the fatted calf.