Talk:L'Homme qui marche I

Article rename.
Typically on English Wikipedia we name articles by the English name (such as the French sculpture The Walking Man), unless it is better known by the foreign name (such as Les Miserables). I'm not sure where this one falls, but my guess is it's probably widely known as "Walking Man I". Green Cardamom (talk) 03:40, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I did question whether to name the article by the English name, but looking at all the news stories they were all calling it L'Homme Qui Marche I. I also saw the The Walking Man, which would have meant the articles would of had the same name. - JuneGloom07    Talk?  11:54, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually a lot of news stories are calling it "Walking Man I" (see my last link above). In terms of disambig there is a disambig page as normal. Green Cardamom (talk) 22:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I think this actually deserves a disambig at the top of both articles since they both have idential names referring to different works. I will do this but please revert if anyone strongly disagrees. --Sroc (talk) 05:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Image
Surely fair-use would be pretty clear that we could have an actual picture of the sculpture. The bank note image makes it look like the sculpture is of four men of decreasing size, and much of the detail is obscured. I had to look elsewhere to discover what it really looks like. OrangeDog  (τ • ε) 13:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree. A fair-use image should be acceptable on this article. 173.74.60.225 (talk) 19:03, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: The photo does not show the sculpture L'Homme qui marche I, but somewhat differently shaped sculpture L'Homme qui marche II ! --Jocian (talk) 07:06, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Deliberate price
It is clear that the $104.3 million price was deliberatedly a few pennies higher than the $104.2 million for Picasso's "Boy with a pipe" so that a lot of fuss could be made (free advertisement for Sotheby's and art auctions in general) about it supposedly being the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction (if one doesn't "believe" in inflation). Without a reference, adding the would be considered POV or original research, or so, but I'm sure some news article will mention the deliberate price setting. Perhaps someone can find a reference and add it to the text. Afasmit (talk) 19:44, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * There's no supposedly about it, the piece has become the most expensive art work ever sold at auction. Even if it's only beaten the record by a couple of pounds, it's still beaten it. I haven't seen any news source mention that the price was deliberately increased, I don't think Sotheby's would be allowed to do that just to break a record that they were already apart of (Picasso's Garçon à la Pipe was sold at the auction house too). - JuneGloom07    Talk?  21:18, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * You can call it the most expensive art work ever sold at auction if you say that buying a Kia Rio today is more expensive than buying a Chevrolet Corvette was in 1979.
 * Perhaps it is a coincidence that the bidding price ended up just a few pounds north of the previous (absolute money) record, but it does stretch one's gullibility. The buyer must have had the old $104.2 million in his head, though I don't know what the kick is beating that if you remain anonymous. Afasmit (talk) 23:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't call $100,000 "a few pennies". OrangeDog  (τ • ε) 18:56, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Appletart!
There should be a section that says it sold for too much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.139.110.96 (talk) 22:10, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I think that's more of an opinion, which definitely doesn't need it's own section. - JuneGloom07    Talk?  23:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protect
Since this is on the frontpage, I'd like if it could be unprotected again - the level of vandalism doesn't justify the protection and can't be corrected by those watchlisting it... Mostlyharmless (talk) 03:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. --BorgQueen (talk) 07:09, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Nag, nag, nag
Sotheby's claim, universally adopted by the media covering it, that this now is the most expensive work of art sold at an auction suffers from more than the inflation issue explained above using a Kia Rio and a Corvette. Even if one uses the absolute values, the price is only a record when expressed in pounds and not when expressed in dollars. The Picasso was sold in 2004 at Sotheby's, New York and was thus paid for in dollars ($104,168,000, to be precise) and the Giacometti was sold at Sotheby's, London, in pounds (£65,001,250). With an exchange rate of 1.7907 dollars/pound on May 5, 2004, the Picasso sold for "only" £58.2 m, or almost £7 m less than the Giacometti. On the other hand, the exchange rate on Feb 3, 2010, was 1.59598 dollars per pound, which gives a value of ca. $103,741,000 for the Giacometti, almost half a million dollars less than the Picasso. Please check if I did those calculations right. Thus, combined with the inflation issue, I believe that using the words "one of the most expensive works" in the lede/lead is accurate while using the general statement "the most expensive work", a line admittedly used by everyone else, is not.

At least this makes the possible deliberate nature of the bidding price a moot point: the $104.3 million dollars probably only is mentioned by many reporters (e.g. in the NY Times ) because they knew it had to be more than $104,2. Afasmit (talk) 07:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

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