The result was a low-key affair with a clandestine flavor. Thrills and disappointments melted into a quiet hum of business, and artworks were for the eyes of experts only. For Christie's, such events are a public-relations gesture as well as a means of finding auction material. "People can get to know us and not feel shy about calling us in the future," print specialist Elisabeth Hahn said.
For clients, free estimate days offer a way to avoid Christie's standard $225-an-hour appraisal fee while picking the brains of specialists. "I came to have my suspicions confirmed," said Gary Chafe, who calls himself "a sharpshooter." The Santa Barbara artist said he scours estate sales in search of treasures as a means of living in an expensive community "without paying the price."
One woman brought a landscape that she had bought at a thrift shop and hoped would turn out to be the work of American 19th-Century painter Albert Bierstadt. Debra Force, head of Christie's American paintings department, assessed the would-be Bierstadt along with works by Maxfield Parrish and what she called "a mixed bag" of material. One find, to be offered in upcoming auctions, was a collection of 20th-Century drawings and pastels by such artists as Arthur B. Davies and Joseph Stella.
