Want That to Gogh?

With High-Dollar Art Comes High-Stakes Shipping & Handling

NEW YORK

The spring auction season is nearly over, and that means the super-rich have once again spent unholy sums on wall hangings. More than $600 million has already changed hands, with a Picasso, a van Gogh and a Lichtenstein among the biggest prizes.

Now the winners face a question that few of us will ever have the good luck to ask: Once you buy an object worth a fortune, how do you haul it home?

A minivan and a poker buddy won't do. But a quiet little industry stands ready to help.

You don't hear a lot about the fine-art moving business, because it generally shuns publicity and rarely advertises. Some top-tier firms, such as James Bourlet in Long Island City, don't have Web sites, nor do they hang any signs on their doors. Others, like U.S. Art in Boston, run Web sites that are so primitive it seems as if they don't expect visitors. ("You've made it," the U.S. Art home page says in an old-school crawl. "Welcome to the finest transportation resource in the world!")

Clients in this realm tend to treasure discretion as much as art, which, for anyone with a Rembrandt in the den, makes a lot of sense. Several companies wouldn't even return a phone call to discuss their work. Other executives would chat with one simple condition: no names. Not their name or the name of the firm. A handful agreed to talk on the record.

All were asked to describe the journey that likely awaits the year's most nattered-about canvas: "Dora Maar au Chat," an oil painting by Picasso that recently sold for $95.2 million, the second-largest wad ever dropped at an auction. (Nitpick alert: Adjust prices for inflation and "Dora" is actually fourth, with a van Gogh called "Portrait of Dr. Gachet," sold 16 years ago, No. 1 at today's equivalent of $116.7 million.)

Predicting the route of "Dora" requires some speculation because the identity of the buyer is a mystery that has the art world atwitter. What's known is that on May 3, a middle-aged, dark-haired man turned up at the impressionist auction at Sotheby's and waved a paddle around until everyone cried uncle. Or murmured uncle, really. Nobody had ever laid eyes on this guy, who reportedly spoke with a Russian accent and bid like a rookie. (He waved vigorously, for starters. Totally frowned upon.)

The leading theory is that Waving Man represented any number of Russian billionaires. Matthew Weigman, a spokesman for Sotheby's, politely declined to discuss "Dora" or her buyer.

Let's suppose, though, that the painting is Russia-bound. How would it get there? The short answer is: in a hurry. Every art buyer, especially every super-rich art buyer, wants the goods yesterday. It's possible that "Dora" has already left the country, but for the sake of simplicity, we'll imagine it is still awaiting pickup.

Once selected, the company would dispatch a conservator to Sotheby's to assess the condition of the painting and its readiness for travel. The painting would also be measured for a custom case, the likes of which you won't find at a UPS Store. It's a box within a box within a box, basically. One box is lined with Tyvek, a DuPont product designed to keep moisture out that is hugely popular in the home-construction business. Acid-free foam, to provide temperature insulation, lines another.

The case would then be brought to Sotheby's, where it would sit for at least a few hours -- preferably a whole day -- so that its interior would acclimate to the 55 percent humidity in the climate-controlled rooms of the auction house. That's the ideal amount of atmospheric water vapor. When it was showtime, plenty of bubble wrap, or something like it, would sheath the painting, which would then be inserted into a travel frame, which would slide into that foam-lined interior case, which would then be loaded into the wooden crate lined with Tyvek.