2016考研英语二：考前终极预测卷一及答案解析

　　Directions:

　　Read the following text and match each of the numbered items in the left column to its correspond- ing information in the right column. There are two extra choices in the right column. Mark your an- swers on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)

　　A Picasso painting valued at about $140 million is the centerpiece of a new type of auction at Christie’s, combining Modern and contemporary artworks spanning 100 years, that will kick-start its postwar and contemporary sales in New York in May.

　　Scheduled for May 11, “Looking Forward to the Past” is an evening sale of about 25 lots orga- nized by Loic Gouzer, of Christie’s postwar and contemporary art department. Mr. Gouzer was also the specialist responsible for Christie’s much-hyped “If I Live I’ll See You Tuesday” auction of 35 works by fashionable contemporary names, which raised $134.6 million last May.

　　“Traditionally, people would start by collecting Impressionist and Modern art, and then gradu- ally turn to contemporary,” Mr. Gouzer said. “Recently, we’re seeing the contrary. Collectors start with contemporary, and then they start to look for other works that have quality, relevance and fresh- ness.”

　　Picasso, who died at 91 in 1973, has nevertheless traditionally been included in auctions of Im- pressionist and Modern art. But Christie’s said that the broadening client base at the week of con- temporary art sales in New York was crucial in persuading an unidentified seller to come forward with Picasso’s 1955 canvas “Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’),” around which the auction house fashioned its “Looking Forward to the Past” sale. Inspired by Eugene Delacroix’s 1834 Orientalist masterpiece, “Women of Algiers,” this was one of a number of works Picasso produced in the 1950s and 1960s in response to earlier artists he admired. This particular painting was last seen on the mar- ket in November 1997, when it was bought by the London dealer Libby Howie, on the behalf of a client, for $31.9 million at Christie’s auction from the collection of the Americans Victor and Sally Ganz.

　　Christie’s new valuation of about $140 million on this superior Picasso ranks as one of the highest estimates ever put on an artwork at auction. Francis Bacon’s “Three Studies of Lucian Freud,” which sold for a record $142.4 million at Christie’s in November 2013, carried a presale es timate of more than $85 million. Christie’s has guaranteed the seller of “Les Femmes d’Alger (Ver sion ‘O’)” an undisclosed minimum price. It would not specify whether this guarantee had been funded by the auction house or by a third party.

　　Last week, Mr. Gouzer posted an image of a 1938 Picasso painting of Dora Maar on Instagram. That work will be in his sale with an estimate of more than $50 million. But there are still gaps, Mr. Gouzer said. “I’m still looking for a 1960s Carl Andre.”