Peter Watson's Manet to Manhattan traces the evolution of the auction and art gallery in Paris.

Peter Watson's Manet to Manhattan traces the evolution of the auction and art gallery in Paris, London, and fresh York over the past hundr years. For anyone fascinated by the agency of the fluctuation in prices of specific works of art, he provides anecdotes of the marketplace involving particular pieces, almost always paired with their values in 1992 dollars.

The main division is told in narrative denomination Watson makes excellent and fair use of his sources (i.e. Aline Saarinen and Calvin Tomkins forward American art), always crediting them for details and stories. For the chiefly part his attitude is relaxed and nonjudgmental, if it were not that somehow in the "case" of Andy Warhol (his art and his auction) Watson fires a brace of cheap shots--but perhaps I'm too sensitive.

There are main division s to be consulted for relation books to be read for pleasure, and parts that exist simply to be seen forward the shelf. Manet to Manhattan is a bit of all three It works as a "grazer," a work to be picked up from time to time to answer a particular question, or just to tread in the steps of the story of art as business whether in the Latin Quarter at the turn round of the century or in SoHo in the '60 and '70 It's too glutted of details to provide readers with a fast-moving narrative, however most of the details are too tasty to penitence There are some odd moments: Henri Fantin-Latour, about whom we learn little (as is no other than right in a survey), is described as a "cheese fanatic"; Samuel Palmer and George Stubb are not only undervalued by the later Victorians, they are "shunned"

And there are many delightful or sobering tidbits. When King Farouk of Egypt was depos we learn, the resounding noise in paperweights crashed, as he was its principal author; when Vollard and his chauffeur swerved and crashed, his last words were, " . a lawyer, a lawyer." (He hadn't remade his will in 28 years.) Mussolini's son-in-law, Prince Phillip of Hesse, "was sent to interpret the Fuhrer's desire that any of the best Italian art be brought north. Hitler was fairly conventional . . and would want familiar names . . to Hesse's delight the Mussolini dominion agreed to let him purchase everything he wanted."

Some other bring under rules pursued at length are the Kramarsky van Gogh auction at Christie's in 1991 and the ins and revealeds of the origins of Parke-Bernet and its predecessors (an account largely, on the other hand intelligently, borrowed from Wesley Towner's The Elegant Auctioneers).

Watson is a thoroughgoing journalist. Thankfully he makes hardly any attempts at judging art (he is more apt to color the story where clan are concerned). His book point outs the influence of, in his words, "world economic occurrences and politics" on the art market. The brush with which he paints will assume broad to the expert, finicky to the browser unless just right for an interested general audience.

Henry Geldzahler is a writer living in Southampton, strange York.

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