Lehman bequeaths an artistic premium
Rob Cox
A year ago, investors ran screaming from
Lehman Brothers’ assets as the investment bank crumbled. On Sunday,
they could barely squeeze in for an auction of the firm’s art
collection in Philadelphia. As morbid as it sounds, death sometimes
creates value for the living.
Indeed, the sale of more than
200 pictures from Lehman’s walls attracted a standing-room-only crowd
of 400 at Freeman’s auction house in Philadelphia. The firm’s online
platform was overloaded too, with internet audio connections failing.
But that did nothing to cool the apparent fever to own a piece of
Lehman.
The lots brought in nearly twice their estimated take
of around $750,000, with some pieces fetching multiples of their
published estimates. It wasn't surprising that Georges Schreiber’s oil
rendering of the Brooklyn Bridge found a buyer. That the relatively
insignificant work sold for five times its lower estimate, including
gavel fees, was.
Of course, it only proves the estimates –
like those issued by Wall Street analysts who rated Lehman shares a
“buy” in August 2008 – were faulty. And therein lays the appeal of the
Lehman auction. No appraiser can accurately assess the emotional value
a piece of art will command due to its historical provenance.
The
1945 Schreiber portrait is a prime example. The painting hung on the
wall in Lehman’s New York boardroom. In a sense then, owning this
particular “Brooklyn Bridge” is the closest almost anyone will come to
an inside view of one of history’s greatest financial collapses.
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