Spotted furiously taking notes at the February 12 Phillips de Pury & Company contemporary evening sale in London: Patricia Hambrecht, the onetime president of Christie’s North and South America and the former president of the jewelry house Harry Winston. She’s got a new consulting gig for the Moscow-based Mercury Group, which took over Phillips in October. Observers surmised that Mercury, already involved in gem retailing, is intent on expanding Phillips’s profile in the luxury sector and sees the New York-based Hambrecht as key to that plan. Her sterling cred in uptown circles may help in another way. Mercury execs are said not to love Phillips’s downtown Manhattan HQ, and hiring Hambrecht may also lead the auction house northward.

"Uptown Girl" originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's April 2009 Table of Contents.