Mrs. Astor's Favorite Painting

The media has had a spotlight on the Astor family feud for months, and now Anthony Marshall, the son of New York society doyenne Brooke Astor, has been indicted on charges that he mismanaged his mother's considerable fortune and will.

The sale of a painting reputed to be one of Mrs. Astor's favorites — Childe Hassam's Flags, Fifth Avenue (also known as Up the Avenue from Thirty-Fourth Street, May 1917) — is one of the transactions that prosecutors have reportedly been investigating. It hung in her Park Avenue apartment until 2002, when her son brokered a deal to sell it for approximately $10 million. Questions were raised as to whether or not Marshall coerced her into parting with the painting against her will. The capital gains made on the sale were then somehow underreported, meaning Mrs. Astor didn't pay as much taxes as she should have. (Her son has chalked this up to a mistake.) A quagmire, for sure.

But what's most interesting, I think, is that Marshall took $2 million (or 20%) of that $10 million as his fee for selling the Hassam. Auction houses take a commission, known as the buyer's premium. In fact, Marshall's 20% looks like a bargain compared to what Christie's and Sotheby's would have charged — both auction houses collect 25% on the first $20,000, 20% on the price from $20,001 to $500,000, and 12% on the remainder. But should family?