The MC of the sale. A consummate showman (or woman), oftentimes British at the tonier houses, who is able to use both humor and high drama to wheedle remarkable prices from even reluctant bidders. Eac [..]

This is the auctioneer's Excalibur, wielded as a cross between a conductor's baton and a judge's gavel, and when it comes down—sometimes with a light tap, other times with a plangent th [..]

The snooty cousin of the ping pong paddle, these numbered instruments can be used to telegraph bids too—though many high-flying buyers opt for a more discreet approach, signaling the auctioneer with a [..]

This is the term for the work at issue in a particular round of bidding. A lot is typically a single work but can also contain more than one piece as a group.

The person, estate, or institution that put a specific artwork up for auction, oftentimes as a result of one of the "three Ds": death, divorce, or debt.

This is the approximate market value assigned to a particular lot by the auction house's specialists.

These are the on-staff connoisseurs who put together the auction, acquiring the works, assessing their value, and contextualizing them in the frame of art history for the catalogue. Specialists are hi [..]

This is the auction house's guestimate for what a particular work could fetch in a sale, agreed upon in advance by the house's specialists (as a bracket around the appraisal) and included in [..]

The minimum price that a consignor will allow the auction house to sell an artwork for, meaning that if bidding fails to rise to the level of the reserve the work will be bought in.

This is the glossy, beautifully produced glamorized brochure that the auction house sends to collectors and other interested parties to whet the appetite for a sale, provide the estimates, and pump up [..]