Not long ago, the British Museum passed up a $7.5 million package deal on old masters' drawings from the Duke of Devonshire's collection. Bit of a mistake, that. Last week in London, Christie's auctioned off the 71 drawings for $28.5 million, including a record-breaking $4.8 million for Raphael's study of a head and hand. No drawing had ever before sold for more than $1 million. No sooner had the gavel dropped than "the greatest picture ever painted," J.M.W. Turner's Seascape: Folkestone, was put on the block at Sotheby's. That modest assessment came from the...
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