Courtesy Christie's

In 1990, Japanese industrialist Ryoei Saito buys van Gogh's "Portrait du Dr. Gachet" for $82.5 million 100 years after its creation.

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1989-1998

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Christie’s and Sotheby’s see their highest Latin American sale totals in May 1989. Christie’s brings in $5.5 million, auctioning Fernando Botero’s 1978 Princess Margarita After Velasquez for a record $440,000. And Sotheby’s claims a world record for a Latin American sale with a $7.2 million tally.

In 1994, Christie’s outdistances archrival Sotheby’s — for the first time ever — by $633 million to $531 million in autumn sales.

Japanese industrialist Ryoei Saito snags van Gogh’s Portrait du Dr. Gachet, 1890, at Christie’s in 1990 for the unprecedented sum of $82.5 million. After the death of Saito — who once threatened to cremate the work with him when he died — in 1996, the painting mysteriously disappears from the public eye and has yet to resurface.

The Chicago-based Davis & Company Wine Auctioneers sells $5.3 million worth of wine in 1995, compared with $3 million the year before. Sotheby’s increases its wine sales from one to five annually and partners with Madison Avenue wine merchants Sherry-Lehmann, also in 1995 — a banner year, evidently, for the category.

"House Rules: 1989-1998" originally appeared in the September 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's September 2009 Table of Contents.