—Cyril Connolly, Sotheby’s Yearbook, 1960–1 A LITTLE AFTER 9.30 P.M. ON 15 OCTOBER 1958, SOTHEBY’S NEW chairman Peter Wilson raised his gavel to auction seven Impressionist masterpieces. He had staked his career on this moment, the culmination of two years of intense negotiation with the estate of the German-Jewish collector Jakob Goldschmidt. Goldschmidt’s executors had first approached Christie’s, traditionally auctioneers to the nobility, requesting a big social splash. Sir Alec Martin had pulled a long face at the suggestion of an evening sale with bidders in black tie and evening dresses, and was not impressed by the expectation of a lower than usual commission. The executors next sounded out Sotheby’s, auctioneers to the carriage trade. Peter Wilson revelled in special terms. He would arrange the sale on the far side of the moon if that was what the estate wanted. Maximum publicity, as stipulated, attended the event. The first evening sale since the eighteenth century; television news cameras for the first time; and 1,400 ticket holders in evening dress, including Margot Fonteyn, Kirk Douglas and Somerset Maugham.
