New Art World Order - Rachael Lambert
There’s a sentence buried in a recent Financial Times report about Sotheby’s that I keep coming back to. An art adviser mentioned that their client, someone who had consigned an entire collection to the auction house, received payment eight months later than anticipated. Eight months. And the reason, per Sotheby’s own contract language, was that the house wouldn’t release funds to the seller until every item in the collection had been paid for by buyers. The adviser called it unusual. I’d call it something else.
This is the story underneath the story circulating this week: Sotheby’s is offering sellers 7% interest to voluntarily delay receiving their sale proceeds for a minimum of six months. The auction house is calling it an “extended settlement terms payment option,” framing it as one of several “innovations” offering clients “greater optionality and financial flexibility.”
That is not what this is.
