From the Kahnweiler sales, these same works were sold in various auctions or in private deals in a very short time and each time, same people were buying and/or selling and each time prices increased. Breton and Eluard are two examples among dozens of self-proclaimed collectors who tried to speculate around the Kahnweiler sequestration sale. If their names were known as bidders in the Kahnweiler sales, their role on the secondary market in the twenties has been overlooked until now. They had a central position, gravitating around artists, collectors and established dealers. In order to earn money or just enjoy art, they participated to the rise of the market for Cubist art in France that lasted until the 1929 crisis.
An unpublished text written in December 1927 by Robert Desnos, one of the Surrealists who attended and bought for himself at the Kahnweiler sale summarized perfectly this period:
"As for the Kahnweiler sales, it was surely the craziest spectacle imaginable. One witnessed the birth of this speculative madness on painting that was to reign for years and that barely slows down in our time. All of what was then called 'the intellectual avant garde' had gathered there. We could take for a pittance (fabulous compared with pre-war prices) paintings that, a few months later, would be worth a fortune ” (Desnos archives, BLJD Paris).
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Summary