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  3. The longest bull run in a century of art-market history ended on a dramatic note with a sale of 56 works by Damien Hirst, Beauti

The longest bull run in a century of art-market history ended on a dramatic note with a sale of 56 works by Damien Hirst, Beauti

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问题    The longest bull run in a century of art-market history ended on a dramatic note with a sale of 56 works by Damien Hirst, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, at Sotheby’s in London on September 15th 2008. All but two pieces sold, fetching more than ￡70m, a record for a sale by a single artist. It was a last victory. As the auctioneer called out bids, in New York one of the oldest banks on Wall Street, Lehman Brothers, filed for bankruptcy.
   The world art market had already been losing momentum for a while after rising bewilderingly since 2003. At its peak in 2007 it was worth some $65 billion, reckons Clare McAndrew, founder of Arts Economics , a research firm—double the figure five years earlier. Since then it may have come down to $50 billion. But the market generates interest far beyond its size because it brings together great wealth, enormous egos, greed, passion and controversy in a way matched by few other industries.
   In the weeks and months that followed Mr. Hirst’ s sale, spending of any sort became deeply unfashionable. In the art world that meant collectors stayed away from galleries and salerooms. Sales of contemporary art fell by two-thirds, and in the most overheated sector, they were down by nearly 90% in the year to November 2008. Within weeks the world’s two biggest auction houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, had to pay out nearly $200m in guarantees to clients who had placed works for sale with them.
   The current downturn in the art market is the worst since the Japanese stopped buying Impressionists at the end of 1989. This time experts reckon that prices are about 40% down on their peak on average, though some have been far more fluctuant. But Edward Dolman, Christie’ s chief executive, says: "I’m pretty confident we’ re at the bottom."
   What makes this slump different from the last, he says, is that there are still buyers in the market. Almost everyone who was interviewed for this special report said that the biggest problem at the moment is not a lack of demand but a lack of good work to sell. The three Ds—death, debt and divorce—still deliver works of art to the market. But anyone who does not have to sell is keeping away, waiting for confidence to return.
In the first paragraph, Damien Hirst’ s sale was referred to as "a last victory" because
选项 A、the art market had witnessed a succession of victories.
B、the auctioneer finally got the two pieces at the highest bids.
C、Beautiful Inside My Head Forever won over all masterpieces.
D、it was successfully made just before the world financial crisis.
答案D
解析 含义题。考生根据第一段的第一句话可以得知，这个持续时间最长的艺术品市场牛市是 以赫斯特的56件作品成功拍卖而终止的，以及信号词后面的提示，即在赫斯特作品大卖的同 时．雷曼兄弟的破产标志着世界经济开始走向衰退，所以作者将赫斯特作品的成功拍卖比作是 艺术品市场交易的“最后的一次胜利”，D项“这次交易是在世界金融危机开始前完成的”，说法 符合原文的意思，故为正确答案。A项“艺术品市场经历了一系列的成功交易”在文章中没有提 及。B项“拍卖人最终以高价得到了两件作品”和C项“‘我脑海中永存的美丽’赢得了所有大 作”原文中均未提到。
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