Economic Indicator?

Anyone following the two sales of Modern and Impressionist art at Sotheby's and Christie's, last week, would be tempted to speculate on the art market and the market in general. The Art Newspaper's Sarah Douglas has written a neat post-mortem with lots of juicy details on how much was spent to win which pieces. Do these sales bode a bullish economy? I'm certainly not qualified to even guess, but it's fascinating reading, nonetheless. (Say, if you came here with an eye toward learning About Economics, please refer to Mike Moffatt's site. He can tell you anything you'd care to know about how the economy works.)

Today in Art History:

• William Hogarth (British painter and engraver), born in 1697