If I had $29 million, I would fly to London and go to next week's Sotheby's auction and buy Picasso's "La Lecture," the 1932 painting that first depicted the face of his young muse Marie-Therese Walter, and take it home and hang it on the wall and just stare at it and stare at it until it struck me that I could make something so beautiful, too, and I would. And if I was in London already, I would go to the place and just snap a quick pic with my cellphone and do it that way.

The "fire sale" of the Lehman Brothers art collection went so-so. Some serious bargains were grabbed; some things-this Richter lithograph-went for well above estimate. The big Julie Mehretu painting (everyone, where everyone is Goldman Sachs and their like, has one!) seems oddly like a bargain at a million dollars. The Neo Rauch, at half a million, mid-estimate, seems like a great buy. The John Currin went for a very low price. And so the circle of boom and bust continues unabated etc.

Sotheby's started its own line of diamond jewelry three and a half years ago and for the first three years it performed tremendously. Much less so now! It is a partnership between the auction house and Steinmetz Diamond Group, which is DeBeers' number one customer.