Trying The Soft Sell

“A rare painting that until late 2001 hung in a dilapidated Ontario farmhouse is scheduled to be sold next month by Sotheby’s in New York where it could fetch as much as $3-million. The auction of Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May by British artist John William Waterhouse marks the second time in the last five years that the acknowledged masterpiece has been put on the block.” Last time, the sellers withdrew the painting from sale when bidding stalled short of expectations, and “the hype this time around is decidedly more subdued.”