The Moment

摘要

Perhaps you've heard: the very rich are not like you and me. Oh, they're feeling the impact of the financial crisis and watching their portfolios, if not their pennies. Just not so much that they're willing to bypass a rare opportunity to pay $37.7 million for a Bran-cusi statue or $46.4 million for a Matisse.rnThe Sale of the Century, as it was called, was held at Paris' Grand Palais, and it was not a sale at all but an auction of the art collected by the late iconic French designer Yves Saint Laurent and his business and former life partner, Pierre Berge. It's understandable if you want to dismiss the hundreds of millions spent on someone else's stuff as just another example of clueless extravagance in an age of thrift. But for those with means, there was something else for sale, as valuable and just as likely to drive a person to irrational spending as a masterpiece: taste.