Article: Is the art market heading for a crash?

A Monet sold for Pounds 21m last week, setting yet another new record. But the true picture, some experts say, is of a less certain future

Applause rang round Christie's auction room in New York on Tuesday when the hammer came down on Monet's 1873 Le Pont du chemin de fer Argenteuil for $41.5m (21m) - breaking the record for the artist set last year when his Nympheas 1904 sold for 18.6m in London.

Between them Sotheby's and Christie's shifted around $500m-worth of art at spring sales in New York last week. It can expect more big business at the contemporary sales this week, the jewel being Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, valued at 17m, which would see Freud the most expensive ...

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