When the work on Le Mireur finally began to find its rhythm, I understood that we had crossed a threshold. For the first time, we truly had command of the historical foundations of the European Art Market.

From 1700 to 1911, a large part of the documentary memory was gradually recovering its unity. But one fact immediately imposed itself. The Art Market had never been only European. Since the nineteenth century, another continent had built its own memory.

The United States.

Very early, I understood that if we truly wanted to speak of global memory, we had to move definitively beyond our European perspective.

That was when Thomas Bayer entered our story. At first glance, everything separated us. He belonged to the world of American academia. His work was that of a researcher of remarkable rigor. For decades, he had patiently reconstructed old auction results from the great Anglo-American Auction Houses. His corpus covered nearly two centuries of history.

Forty-two thousand results.

Ninety Auction Houses.

An exceptional documentary corpus.

But what struck me immediately was not the scale of his work. It was his method. Every piece of information was verified. Cross-checked. Documented.

Once again, I found the same intellectual requirement. The Art Market could be studied seriously only on one condition: never sacrifice evidence.

Our first exchanges were very simple. In the end, we spoke less about acquisition than about research. Thomas Bayer wanted to understand what we were actually building. I explained that our goal was not to add a new database to those that already existed. We wanted to connect all the memories of the Art Market. As our conversation developed, I recognized a phenomenon I had already observed with Enrique Mayer. At a certain point, Thomas Bayer was no longer talking only about his work. He was thinking about what it could become. He understood that his forty-two thousand results would no longer remain isolated.

They would enter into dialogue with Le Mireur.

With Mayer.

Then, soon, with American biographies, catalogs, signatures, archives, and all the other documentary layers we were gradually bringing together.

That was when I understood the true strength of Artprice. Every new corpus increased the value of all the previous ones. No acquisition remained isolated. Every memory enriched all the others.

We therefore acquired Thomas Bayer’s work. It immediately filled the documentary gap between the major European corpora and the history of Anglo-American auctions.

For the first time, a continuity appeared. The market was ceasing to be a juxtaposition of national libraries. It was gradually becoming a global history.

Looking back, I realize today that Thomas Bayer did not bring us only forty-two thousand auction results. He brought us an American way of conducting research.

Academic rigor.

Documentary precision.

A method of constant verification.

That encounter definitively confirmed an intuition that was already guiding all our decisions.

We never bought just data.

We welcomed methods of thought.

And each one enriched the one before it.

When I left Thomas Bayer, I understood that the journey was only beginning. Europe had transmitted its memory to us. America was now going to transmit its own.

And another name was already coming up in every conversation.

Peter Hastings Falk.