There is one work of art that says it all about this year’s art market: Damien Hirst’s life-size, diamond-encrusted platinum skull, “For the Love of God”. Almost the whole point of this work is that its price tag was £50m; it laid claim to being the most expensive work of art ever made. It was certainly the most expensive work of art recorded sold this year. That cunning alchemist Hirst had turned platinum and diamonds into something far more valuable. And, as this year has amply proved, blue-chip art has never been more highly valued.

So successful have the Big Two auction houses been in expanding the global reach of their client base it now seems that everyone, everywhere wants to buy art. Certainly there has never been so much money washing around the art market. Christie’s alone sold almost $1bn worth of art in just seven sales during its annual autumn series of Impressionist & Modern and Postwar & Contemporary Art auctions in New York – an industry record. Who cared about the crisis in the money markets? Not, it would seem, those on the end of the saleroom telephones.