Sotheby's : bidding for class

An account of life inside the world's oldest and richest auction house. The author reports from within in events as the auction of the personal property of Jackie Kennedy Onassis in 1996 and Mohammed Al Fayed's sale of the goods of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in 1998, and traces the history of the long and often bitter rivalry with Sotheby's only significant competitor, Christie's. He shows how top executives from the two houses compete in the wooing of wealthy widows and estate lawyers as they attempt to grab the rights to the few artistic masterpieces left in private hands, and to uncover new categories of `collectibles' with which to tempt the appetite of a relentlessly consumerist world.