The fact is that in recent years the market hasn't had much chance to take gallery list into account for Kossoff. "In a period of 19 years, Leon has had two commercial gallery exhibitions," says Peter Goulds, director of LA Louver, Kossoff's West Coast dealer. The artist's most recent show, in 2000, was at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, which represents him in New York. (Kossoff's London dealer is Annely Juda.) His drawings were priced at about $15,000; his paintings up to $350,000. "All have been placed," says Goulds. Since then only two paintings have left Kossoff's studio, both sold to publishing magnate S.I. Newhouse.

No date has been set for Kossoff's next gallery exhibition—or for Auerbach's or Freud's, for that matter. (However, Kossoff's current work can be seen in England at the large, impressive exhibition "Drawing From Paintings," at London's National Gallery, which also includes five paintings; at the Fitzwilliam, in Cambridge, there is a fine show of Auerbach's complete etchings and drypoints, many the gift of James Kirkman, who was with Marlborough before becoming a private dealer.) Kossoff's dealers are hoping for a show in the coming year. Whenever it happens, Goulds believes that the prices quoted "will set the pace for how his work is considered in the future, financially speaking."

Kossoff's market is changing, says Christie's Ordovas, "but it is happening much slower. He is behind Auerbach, and Auerbach's prices will be pulling his up. Perhaps he needs just one painting that will do that." Braka is more bullish: "Kossoff's work is of tremendous quality. He is a fabulous artist. It is inevitable that we will see strong gains in his prices in the next few years."

The dealer is not shy about making other predictions. "For Francis Bacon," he says, "the February price is only the beginning. He is a giant in postwar painting." Noting private sales had surpassed the almost $28 million paid at Christie's in February, Braka states that "there is no justification in art-historical terms for the gap" between sums fetched by Bacons and by New York School stars like Willem de Kooning: "The financial imbalance is going to be redressed." Auction houses appear to agree. On May 15, Sotheby’s New York had Bacon’s 1962 Study for Innocent X—a full-length image of a furious, anguished pope—up for sale, and it was estimated to bring more than $30 million. It sold for a record $52,680,000.

Braka is enthusiastic about Auerbach too. "While we have all known that Auerbach is one of the truly great postwar artists, prices haven't reflected this," he says. "I have been telling collectors for the last 15 years that, money aside, just buy the paintings. As a result, I now have rather a lot of happy clients." He laughs, aware that, in one sense, the joke is on him. "I had Auerbachs I bought for £7,000, kept for 10 years and sold for £400,000," he notes. "If I'd kept them for an extra year and a half, they would have been £2 million." At Christie's King Street sale in February, Braka bought Auerbach's 1997 To the Studio 11 for £1,252,000 ($2.5 million).

Although demand outstrips supply for post-1970 Auerbachs, it may be that the steep increase in prices this past year will be followed by a leveling out. Sotheby's Barker and Christie's Ordovas, however, don't believe that a plateau has been reached. "There should be a lot more movement for Auerbach as well as Bacon," says Ordovas. One thing holding back Auerbach may have been the scarcity of his pictures. But that was remedied when Christie's suddenly announced it was auctioning works owned by two devoted American collectors.

While enthusiasm for Auerbach is building, interest in Freud is already clearly keen. During its 2004 exhibition of some of his recent work, the Wallace Collection had crowd-control problems for the first time since it opened, in 1900. The pictures went on to Acquavella, where they all sold quickly. "We had 20,000 people in the space of two or three weeks," says Michael Findlay. The auction market for Freud, says Ordovas, "has been dramatically reassessed." That was proved by the February 2005 sale at Christie's London, when the artist's 1962–63 Red-Haired Man on a Chair set a world auction record of £4,152,000 ($7.7 million).