Art: Bull Market

The international art world is feeding a bull market of its own, led by the French impressionists and easy-to-take early works by Picasso, Matisse, Dufy and Chagall. The boom got under way soon after World War II, but the event that proved the market's strength, art dealers now agree, was the sale of Department Store Tycoon Gabriel Cognacq's collection on May 14, 1952. Before the day was over the auctioneer had heard closing bids totaling 305 million francs ($871,428), a postwar record. In last month's Paris auctions, the steadily rising market raised a question: it was not how sound is...

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