Sotheby's Paris Sale Breaks French Auction Monopoly

On November 29, 2001, Sotheby's held its first auction in France at 76 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, ending the centuries-old monopoly of French commissaires-priseurs. The sale, led by French president Laure de Beauvau Craon, marked the liberalization of public auctions in the country, transforming them from administrative acts into commercial procedures. The first lot, a rare French translation of Gabriele D'Annunzio's 'Le Feu' (original edition, bound in half-morocco, one of about 50 copies on Holland paper), was estimated at 4,000 francs but sold for 70,000 francs to former Sotheby's CEO Kristen Van Riel. He bought it as a gift for the director of Sotheby's France, who donated it to the company for display in its entrance hall. The volume bears an epigraph from Heraclitus: 'Without hope, one cannot find the unexpected,' alluding to Beauvau Craon's legal challenge against the auction monopoly since 1992. The event exemplified a new fetishism centered on the auction itself as an object of desire and price escalation, beyond traditional fetishism for objects or their owners.