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For The Love Of God

Figure Painting

by Callen Bair and Felix Salmon
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Aug 30 2007 12:00am EDT

"For the Love of God"

An anonymous "informed trade source close to the Hirst market" told The Art Newspaper that the artist's diamond-studded skull sold not for the $100 million that Frank Dunphy (Hirst's business manager) and White Cube (his gallery) are claiming, but rather at a discount of $24 million. That would make the final price $76 million.

For all the breathlessness, what's the point?

Hypothetically, if the paper's source is right, the reduced price may indicate that the jeweled skull had some trouble finding a buyer, but it still brought in more than the pill cabinet sold at Sotheby's in London for just over $19 million just two months ago that made Hirst the most expensive living artist at auction — more than the $72.8 million Rockefeller Rothko sold in Sotheby's New York salesroom in May, which set a record for a contemporary work of art at auction, for that matter.

If the real point of the piece is to hold up a mirror to a culture of decadence, it's made it, whether at $76 million or $100 million.

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