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  3. All art booms are different. The previous one ended in 1989, when Japanese buyers withdrew from the Impressionist market. Intere

All art booms are different. The previous one ended in 1989, when Japanese buyers withdrew from the Impressionist market. Intere

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问题     All art booms are different. The previous one ended in 1989, when Japanese buyers withdrew from the Impressionist market. Interest rates rose in the slump that followed; there were plenty of sellers but no buyers. Today the reverse is true. Buyers are looking to diversify into alternative assets. The only problem is the sellers. There is plenty of money, but little to buy.
    It should follow, then, that buyers will snap up anything. But that is not quite the case, as the Old Master sales at Christie’s in London on December 8th showed only too well. In the recent sales the best pieces sold brilliantly, and the rest hardly at all. The best included a rare Raphael drawing, and an elegant self-portrait by Sir Anthony van Dyck. Many of the leading dealers were present, including Philip Mould, known as the BBC’s "art detective;" Alfred Bader, a rich American art-market broker; and the heirs to two important art-dealing businesses, William Noortman and Simon Green.
    Van Dyck’s oval shaped self-portrait, painted in 1640, the year before he died, had been in the same family for almost 300 years. Mr. Mould joined forces with Mr. Bader to try and win the painting. Young Mr. Noortman, the underbidder who was trying to buy the picture for stock, did not stand a chance. The winning bid was ￡ 7. 4m, nearly three times van Dyck’s previous auction record.
    The last lot in Christie’s sale was a black chalk drawing, less than a foot square, by Raphael, an early 16th-century Italian master. It is the study of a head for one of the Greek muses. Its beauty, rarity and the sense that the study may well have been used by the artist himself when working on a larger painting drew collectors from far and wide.
    Christie’s had estimated the study would fetch ￡ 12m-16m. Bidding opened at ￡ 8. 5m, with three buyers on the telephone. Jennifer Wright, Christie’s New York-based drawings specialist, made a final bid for the Raphael of ￡ 26m—a world record for a work on paper.
    After the sale, Christie’s international co-head, Richard Knight, was quick to point out that, at ￡ 68.4m, theirs had been the biggest Old Master sale ever. "This result shows what a very solid market this is," he said. But that took no account of the failures, which were considerable. 15 of the 43 lots in Christie’s auction failed to sell at all.
Unlike 1989, today, the art market is characterized by an increase of______.
选项 A、sales
B、prices
C、buyers
D、supplies
答案C
解析 根据文中第一段的“The previous one ended in 1989，when Japanese buyerswithdrew…aIternative assets．”可知，上一次艺术繁荣于1989年结束，当时日本的购买者从印象派艺术市场撤出。在随后的经济衰退中，利率开始上升；卖家很多，但没有买家。如今，实际情况正相反。买方正将注意力转向替代性资产，以求多样化。据此可知，如今艺术品市场的特征是买方数量正在增加。C项正确。
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