Truman Capote’s typed manuscript of his classic 1958 New York novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which tells the story of a young New York socialite in the 1940s, was sold in an auction to a Russian billionaire for $306,000.

The manuscript comes complete with the iconic author’s original handwritten annotations. The most striking note in the manuscript’s 84 pages is the protagonist’s name—from “Connie Gustafson” to the now legendary "American geisha" Holly Golightly.

Amherst, N.H. based auctioneer RR Auction originally offered the manuscript for $250,000. It was in good company—the manuscript was auctioned off alongside a 1954 Marilyn Monroe film and items signed by Humphrey Bogart and Judy Garland, among other members of the 20^th century Hollywood elite.

According to the Independent, the seller of the manuscript, who remains anonymous, has ties to a “very famous” autograph collector in New York. Bobby Livingston, vice president at RR Auctions, told the Associated Press that the manuscript is “obviously quite a treasure, quite a find for us.”

The lucky winner who gets to take the original Holly Golightly home is billionaire Igor Sosin. Mr. Sosin plans to display his treasure in Moscow and Monaco.

(RRauction.com)

The price of Elaine's caricature: $875

Yesterday, Doyle New York auctioned off a selection of Elaine Kaufman's personal estate, making $385,000 total off the memories from one the Upper East Side's most memorable restaurant fixtures.

When Elaine Kaufman died last December, hundreds of obituaries mourned the loss of a true New York institution, though whether they were talking about the restaurant closing or the brassy owner herself was a little unclear. (It seems it's impossible to talk about Elaine's without talking about that one time you met Ms. Kaufman, especially if she was rude to you and your name is Michael Wolff.)

Since Elaine's Restaurant was the definition of in-club of kitsch -- the crappy food, the terrible service, the throngs of posers all vying to get in to see the celebrities that ate there every week just to be seen -- it makes a weird kind of logic that one of the day's biggest sellers was a table set with four chairs ($8,500). It was the revered Table #1, where only the biggest and best VIPs sat. While the personal artwork and jewelery of Ms. Kaufman were bought for around their estimated value, a butcher block table went for over two grand. The cash register went for even more. And the paper mache carousal horse that adorned the front window? You don't even want to know. Or do you? Click through the slide show and check out what tchotchkes you missed out spending your life savings on.

Only seven items in the entire estate sale remain unsold, so head over to Doyle's website and start bidding!

Christie's New York, at 20 Rockefeller Plaza. (Photo: David Shankbone / Wikipedia)

The art-auction calendar in the Middle East continues to get busier, with Christie's announcing that it will add a second day to its October sales of modern and contemporary Arab, Iranian and Turkish Art in Dubai.

The new "part two" auction--a regular event in developed markets like London and New York--will include works with estimates ranging from $3,000 to $50,000, which are lower than those included in the main sale.

The sale will include more contemporary works than the main Christie's evening sale in the emirate. "The nature of the work will attract the younger crowd because it's more edgy than the other works," art dealer Asmaa Al Shabibi, of the Lawrie Shabibi gallery, told The National, a paper in the United Arab Emirates. "I think what they are doing is smart."

By offering work that is fresher to market, Christie's will be competing more directly with primary market dealers in the area like Ms. Al Shabibi.

"This will engage more UAE nationals into collecting art and investing in their own artists," Christie's specialist Hala Khayat told the paper, which notes that the unveilings of branches of the Louvre and the Guggenheim in nearby Abu Dhabi are likely to boost the wealthy's interest in modern and contemporary art--and presumably art auctions--in the region.

The newly added auction will be held on the evening of Oct. 26 in Dubai, the day following the house's main auction of modern and contemporary Arab art.

Denis Beaubois's "Currency" (2011) (Photo: Deutscher and Hackett)

How much would you pay for $20,000 Australian dollars? (That's about $21,000 in U.S. dollars.)

Last night, at an auction at the Deutscher and Hackett house in Melbourne, Australia, a bidder decided he or she was willing to spend $21,350 Australian dollars (or about US$22,900) for just that sum, a $1,350 Australian (or roughly US$1,900) surplus over the actual value of the money.

The lot was, in fact, a work of art, composed of nothing but money--two bundles of crisp new $100 Australian banknotes--that was made by Australian Conceptual artist Denis Beaubois. The work's title: Currency (2011).

"I thought there was a strong chance it would go for below [$20,000]," Mr. Beaubois told The Australian, "because there's a lot of suspicion with the work, but it's also interesting it went for above the financial worth." The house had estimated its value at $15,000 to $25,000.

Also interesting is the fact that the work actually hammered for less than its full $20,000 sum, at just $17,500: the $21,350 figure includes the addition of a 22-percent buyer's premium, which is typically paid to the auction house. In other words, Mr. Beaubois actually lost money.

Currency- and money-related artworks--which have a grand tradition, to artists like Marcel Duchamp, Cildo Meireles, Ed Kienholz, The K Foundation and others have contributed--are having something of a moment. Earlier this year, the German artist Hans-Peter Feldmann also made a work out of nothing but money (and, admittedly, metal pins), hanging 100,000 one-dollar bills, his total financial reward for winning the 2010 Hugo Boss Prize, on the walls of the Guggenheim in New York.

However, unlike Mr. Beaubois, Mr. Feldmann plans to keep his money after the exhibition closes on Nov. 2.

Roy Lichtenstein's "Prop for a Film" (1969) (Photo: Phillips de Pury & Co.)

Less than 18 months after it failed to find a buyer during an evening sale at Phillips de Pury & Company in London, a gigantic, unusual Roy Lichtenstein piece will be offered by Sotheby's New York, on Sept. 22, with a far lower estimate.

When it hit the block at Phillips in June 2010, the 8-foot-long acrylic on board work, called Prop for a Film (1969), was tagged with a £500,000 to £700,000 estimate, or about $754,000 to $1.05 million at the time of the sale. This time, it's expected to sell for a comparatively modest $400,000 to $600,000.

In a catalogue note, Phillips declared the piece "one of the most radical and monumental paintings Roy Lichtenstein ever executed." Besides its large scale, the work stands out in the Pop artist's oeuvre, which is dominated by representational pictures, since it is almost entirely abstract--a gigantic wall of black Ben-Day dots on a bright yellow background.

The work was created as part of the Art & Technology program at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which brought together leading contemporary artists--like Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and others--with engineers at major corporations in L.A. Lichtenstein's piece was designed as part of a film installation that he collaborated on with filmmaker Joel Freedman and Universal Studios.

The resulting work was shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the 1970 World's Fair, which was held in Osaka, Japan. The accompanying film that was shown along with the piece is not included with the lot.

We'll see if it finds a buyer this time.

Correction: This article has been changed to reflect the fact that Lichtenstein's work was produced as part of the Art and Technology program at LACMA, not the independent Experiments in Art and Technology program.

Christie's CEO Steven P. Murphy

Christie's CEO Steven P. Murphy announced today that his auction house had set a new record for half-year sales, moving approximately £2 billion, or roughly $3.2 billion, worth of art and other products from January to June this year, according to a report in Bloomberg.

Mr. Murphy, who recently told The Financial Times that he has the "coolest job in the world," also denied the ongoing speculation that Christie's French billionaire Francois Pinault is planning to sell the house, which he has owned since 1998.

The house's chairman, Edward Dolman, recently left for the Qatar Museum Authority, and some experts believe the Middle Eastern nation may make a move for Christie's.

Here's a quick rundown of Christie's report, which paints a picture of a newly revitalized art market:

• Contemporary art continued its recovery, accounting for £431.1 million in sales, a 40 percent improvement over the same period in 2010.
• Private sales climbed by 57 percent versus the same period last year, accounting for £286.7 million of the house's six-month sales.
• Sales in the Americas fell by 13 percent. Bloomberg notes that the record $106.5 million Picasso sale in May 2010 made last year's number difficult to match.
• Hong Kong sales skyrocketed by 48 percent, to £296 million. Asia is now the house's third-largest sales market, after London and New York.
• British modern art sales shot up an astounding 257 percent.

Sotheby's is on tap to report its figures in August.

Which isn't to say they necessarily own the biggest collections, though many of them do. We made our picks based on influence, taste and how active they are on the scene—and behind it. 

No surprise, most of the collectors come from finance and real estate, and tend to back up their personal holdings with positions on museum boards. But some of the people on this list may surprise you, as will where they've chosen to put their money. 

(See also this week The Rise of the Art Pros, by Anthony-Haden Guest and Collectors at the Frick on The Art-Buying Itch.)

Here, The 50 New York Buyers Who Move the Art World. >>

In a surprising and unlikely move, auctioneer Christie's has hired, from outside, a former publishing, record company and Disney executive as its CEO. For the firm known for, literally, centuries (it was founded in 1766) of Eton-educated top managers and very little turnover, this is a huge cultural shift.

Steven Murphy becomes CEO of Christies International PLC. He has been the president and CEO at magazine publisher Rodale; prior to that, had been executive vice president and managing director for Disney Publishing Worldwide and from 1991-1998, he led a record label group for EMI music as President of EMI Music/Angel Records after coming from Simon & Schuster.

Is Christie's going into the art-book business? Is Mr. Murphy good at cost-cutting? (Rodale had a slew of layoffs in 2009). The announcement was, interestingly. made by Christie's parent company, Artemis, owned by luxury-goods magnate Francois Pinault.

As part of the musical chairs, Edward Dolman, the long-time CEO of Christie's, has been promoted to Chairman of Christie's International. Two days ago, in a television interview, Mr. Dolman had said that sales year-to-date were up 46%, a faster recovery than he had expected.

Marc Porter, the face of the Europe-based company in the U.S., remains chairman of Christie's North and South American operations.

These sales can be misleading, though, because the boom is really only in big-ticket items. Tiffany & Co., for example, recently reported revenues were up 9 percent in the third quarter; Zales, more of a mid-market retailer, saw them fall 13 percent.

Into this iffy climate, William Doyle Galleries, on East 87th Street, will host a somewhat suspenseful auction of a few hundred pieces of vintage and estate jewelry Sept. 29. Among the pricier ones is this signed 18-karat-gold, sapphire and diamond flower clip-brooch, made in New York. Suggested bids start at $24,000. It's one of several pieces in the auction from the house of Van Cleef & Arpels.

The company was born when Alfred Van Cleef wed Estelle Arpels in 1896. The bride wore a sparkling tiara nearly half as high as her husband's head, and it was a sign of things to come. The union joined not only man and wife but also two family businesses--diamond cutter and gemstone merchant. Van Cleef & Arpels shops in Paris and along the Riviera followed the nuptials, as did some innovations in design (the company's "mystery setting").  In 1939, Van Cleef was invited to participate in the New York World's Fair. With Hitler advancing on Europe, some family members opted to stay, opening a shop in Rockefeller Center the same year, shortly afterward relocating to 744 Fifth Avenue.

There, the threat of war, and subsequent luxury-goods taxes, was denting jewelry sales. Van Cleef (and rivals like Cartier and Tiffany) struggled to craft designs that were immune to the melancholy mood. Van Cleef's solution was sculptural, three-dimensional pieces, often in the shape of flowers, leaves or ballerinas. This nature motif juiced sales, and it has stayed with it throughout the decades.

But as for Van Cleef & Arpels, no dynasty lasts forever. Although the company remains on Fifth Avenue, and at 22 Place Vendome in Paris, after some messy tax problems some years ago, it was acquired by Swiss giant Compagnie Financière Richemont SA. Ironically, the concern also owns its longtime archrival, Cartier.

 A violet crocodile Birkin bag sold for $55,726 hours ago, well above its pre-sale estimate, breaking no records, but adding a vivid hue to the collection of one buyer. While not every bag sold, a miel (honey) colored crocodile Birkin went for $59,316 and a matte paille (straw) alligator Birkin was sold at $59,316. A Brighton blue lizard Kelly realized $22,440.

The handbag that sold for the least amount (a measly $1,309) was a box calf Kelly bag in noir - boring old black.