But all this is dwarfed by the €21.9 million ($28.34 million) paid for an armchair designed by Eileen Gray around 1917-19, which Christie’s had estimated to be worth €2 million to €3 million ($2.6-3.9 million), plus the sale charge. The curving arms in lacquered wood terminated with dragon heads give it a half-Symbolist, half-Surrealist touch, which does not stop it from coming close to kitsch. The new record for Gray multiplies sixfold the previous record for the Irish-born designer.

Analysts will endlessly debate the causes that account for this unique buying spree and the price explosion that it triggered in the midst of a world recession.

It is true that the names of the late Saint Laurent and of Bergé, who consigned the collection, helped generate huge cost-free publicity. However, you don’t get hundreds of art buyers to spend close to half a billion dollars for celebrity’s sake. My hunch is that the decisive factor was the feeling that the long-gone age of abundance, when works genuinely collected kept coming back to the market after a prolonged absence, had miraculously returned for a few days. For a short while, the natural market ecology of yore seemed to have been restored. The more fundamental factor, however, is the awareness that the supplies of art from the past are inexorably drying up even as interest in art and collecting exponentially grows. This means that as long as works keep turning up, there will be some who will be yearning for them and therefore be reluctant to pass on opportunities that they may not see again.

Collecting is a passion, some would say an addiction, or sometimes just a game. And no one so far has found a way of deterring addicts and gamblers from their obsessive pursuit.

Souren Melikian is the international editor of Art+Auction.

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