Most expensive vintage watch sold in Dubai

The most expensive watch sold in Dubai went for $500,000 at an auction this week.

Christie’s March auctions, which realised a total of $13,437,688 (AED49,343,190) in sales, sold a Girards vintage watch for a little less than $500,000, making it the most expensive vintage watch sold at auction in the Middle East.

The top lot of the sales was Mahmoud Saïd’s Assouan – ile et dunes oil painting, accompanied by its preparatory oil sketch, selling for $685,500 (AED2,517,156), tripling its pre-sale estimate.

Christies said the Dubai auction attracted interest from collectors in 22 countries around the world, and the top lots from the picture sale were bought by clients from Lebanon, Canada, UAE and UK.

The Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art sale included works from Marwan Sahmarani (Lebanese, b. 1970), Nazir Nabaa (Syrian, 1941-2016), Mahmoud Sabri (Iraqi, 1927-2012) and Koorosh Shishegaran (Iranian, b. 1945).

“Christie's reinforced its position as market leader in the region for the 12th consecutive year,” Michael Jeha, Managing Director Christie’s Middle East.

“The demand for top quality art remains extremely strong and the buyer base for Middle Eastern art continues to deepen and internationalise. There was fierce bidding in the room for the most established artists, with eighteen new auction records being set in the process.

“The appetite for watches in the region goes from strength to strength and it was particularly pleasing to see the watches auction deliver not only the most expensive watch ever sold at auction in Dubai, but also the highest ever sold total. The scale and depth of bidding in the sale, not only in the room, but on the phones and online was particularly impressive.”

The shift in media’s business model played a critical role in Trump's victory

Like many populist leaders, Donald Trump skillfully exploited the media obsession for immediacy and page views.

In French journalism, especially in radio and TV, we have an expression that says it all: “He (or she) is a bon client”. Literally, a good customer, an endless provider of soundbites and juicy quotes that will jump to the top of the news cycle. The most spectacular, the semantically simplest wins the prize. The “good customer” delivers strong, punchy lines. These can be superficial and even untrue, but only the tune matters, not the lyrics. That has been the case for countless populist leaders, from the French alt-right Marine LePen, to Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte and, of course, Donald Trump.

Across the board, the media love such fodder. Including mainstream, legacy news outlets. Years ago, draping themselves in the sanctity of journalism, these news organizations kept deriding the clickbait news machines that arose from the internet. “We are not in the same business, they are craving for clicks, we do serious journalism”.