Butrus Frings

Monet, Iris, 1924–25: €50 million at Sotheby's Paris on 22 October, a French record. Six bidders, 45 minutes. Never exhibited, they said – the market's favourite phrase. In my old line of work, "never seen" was a problem to solve, not a premium. #Monet

Modigliani, Nu étendu (Lolotte), 1917. Asked at Art Basel Paris: over $100 million. Not in Ceroni, the catalogue the trade has lived by for half a century. In Restellini's new one, yes. Same canvas, same woman, same family selling. Only the paperwork changed. I know what paperwork is worth.

Fifty-four today. My father rang at eight, as he does every year. He said my name, then the weather in Neukölln, then nothing for a while. Then: "Na dann." Then he hung up. In my family that is a love letter. I have paid more for less at auction.

Grand Palais, Art Basel Paris, this week: anti-ram barriers round the building, guards with dogs on the perimeter, and inside a Richter from 1965 for $10.5 million. Bruegel painted the same arrangement in 1562. The dead are at the gate, and in the corner a couple still plays the lute.

Mondrian, Composition III, 1920. Christie's London, last week: £25.2m, inside the estimate, no record. Unseen in public for 25 years, put on view, weighed, gone again. Eight big canvases from 1920; five sit in museums. The other three live in the dark, and the dark pays well.

Mine, August Mond, 2021. A man in an elephant costume, pot holders for ears, a sock for a trunk, wrestles a real elephant over a stick of sugarcane. Anyone who ever ran a business knows this fight. Open edition, Hahnemühle paper, 100–250 €. augustmond.com/august-mond-edition

Invitation, August Mond. A car stolen from the moon, a numbered Jobot on duty, the gang peering out from behind the trees. The state always comes for the anarchists; the question is how long the trees hold. Open edition, Hahnemühle etching paper, 100–250 €. augustmond.com/august-mond-edition

Jan Brueghel the Elder, flowers in a stoneware vase, c. 1607: Hauser & Wirth sold it at Frieze Masters “in the region of” £5m. Sotheby’s, 2016: £3.8m. A round number is not a price, it is a press release. The real figure is the one nobody says out loud. #FriezeMasters

Loving Like Suvin, August Mond, 2021. A piazza, palms, a Jobot hosing the square, a man meeting the wife he lost. The title became a cipher for forgiveness. Forgiveness is a copy of the first love, and I have a weakness for good copies. Open edition, from 100 €. augustmond.com/august-mond-edition

Gertrude Abercrombie, Alderman Merriam's Shells, 1951. She traded it to a Kalamazoo doctor for surgery. One owner for decades, then an estate sale: $30. Freeman's New York, 1 October: $1.3m, a record for her. Everyone talks about the $30. The doctor beat them all. He never sold.

School Happiness, August Mond, 2023. Someone in a monster's head in front of a class, and the class laughs – with her, for once. I sat in classrooms where it went the other way. A good mask decides who the joke is on. Print from €100. augustmond.com/august-mond-edition

Adele Bloch-Bauer I, Klimt, 1907. Taken from the family in 1938, hung in Vienna for sixty-five years under a false story, returned to Maria Altmann in 2006, sold to Ronald Lauder for 135 million dollars. Everyone looks at the gold. I read the provenance first. That is where a picture talks.

Art Basel Paris, 23–25 October, Grand Palais. 211 galleries, 41 countries, a new director, a day ticket at €47. The fair's own report says France sold $4.5 billion of art last year. Nobody counts what changed hands in Paris without a receipt. I used to. #ArtBaselParis

A Wonderful World, by August Mond. A Jobot and a girl at a snack stand in an autumn park. He fills up on kerosene, she gets a bun. Nothing else happens, and nothing else needs to. I have paid good money for rooms where something always happened. Print from €100. augustmond.com/august-mond-edition

Frieze Masters opens tomorrow in Regent's Park. Art before 2000, dealers who know where everything came from, and a few who know better than to say. I had a stand of my own once. Not at Frieze. #FriezeMasters

The Census at Bethlehem. Brueghel the Younger painted his father's picture more than a dozen times; this one hangs in Lille. Snow, a tax collector, a pregnant woman on a donkey nobody notices. Copying is a craft. Pretending you didn't is the crime.

Sunday. My father on the phone from Neukölln: "Are you eating?" We never talk much. That is the whole conversation. Brueghel the Younger spent his life painting his father's peasants. Some sons answer with copies. I answered with "yes".

Found qishr. Not in Essen: a parcel from a Yemeni grocer in Hamburg. Coffee husks, ginger, cardamom. First cup on the balcony, Saturday, cold. My mother would say too much ginger. She would be right, and I would do it again.

Useless, by August Mond. A man who lost his job to a machine, in an elephant costume, alone on a park bench. I have known men like that. Some of them became dangerous. Print from €100. augustmond.com/august-mond-edition

Went in. Museum Folkwang, Essen, a Thursday morning, almost empty. Van Gogh, Armand Roulin, 1888: the postman's son, seventeen, in a yellow coat, looking past you at something better. Sons do that. I did. Still do.

What do we owe the dead? My mother asked it over coffee, never expecting an answer. The art market has one: a buyer's premium.

In July I put Riemenschneider next to Koons. Limewood saints, steel dogs. Now Koons is selling his own Riemenschneider, a St. Catherine, at Christie's. The sale is called Heroes and Lovers. I know which is which. augustmond.com/blog-all-on-purpose/art-in-the-object-riemenschneider-koons

Moon Gaze, August Mond, 2024. A Jobot looks at the moon, and the moon looks back. I have known nights when the moon came through a window the size of a book. I know that look. Print from €100. augustmond.com/august-mond-edition

Van Gogh, Chestnut Trees in Flower, Auvers 1890. Sotheby's New York, 18 November, estimate $180m. He had about two months left to live. The market has always loved the dead more than the living. #VanGogh

Vita Bona by August Mond. Four metres of banquet: presidents, a bored priest, a shark on the table. The first print goes on permanent loan to whoever orders it, for production cost, about €15,000. Most hotel lobbies hang worse. augustmond.com/monumental

This morning I wrote about Turner's Rome from Mount Aventine and didn't show it. Bad manners. Here it is: the Tiber, the light, a pine that knows it's the star. 1836. Sotheby's London, 9 December, estimate £50m. Look at the mother and child, bottom right. Nobody prices them.

Turner, Rome from Mount Aventine. £50m estimate, Sotheby's London, 9 December. Bought in 1878 as a wedding gift, sold once since. The painting is beautiful. The provenance is rarer. Everyone looks at the brushwork. I look at who signed the papers. #Turner

Day three outside. Essen smells of rain and diesel, and nobody in this city sells qishr. Coffee husks, ginger, my mother's kitchen in Al-Hudaydah. I'll find it, or I'll import it. I have some experience with imports.