If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then where does value lie? Ask the child who tucks away a seashell as a souvenir of summer; or the flea market hunter-gatherer who pays a pittance for antique pottery others are ignoring; or the mutual fund manager who knows a stock’s worth can change by the hour; or the Russian billionaire who has just plunked down more than $80 million for a must-have trio of Francis Bacon’s exquisite, anguished-expressionist canvases. Value is in the eyes, hearts and minds of those who recognize and create it. While often measured in dollars or rubles or euro or yen, in the art market, at least, it’s this ineffable sense of the kind of appreciation certain objects deserve that helps transform price-tagged objects into inestimable, ever-more-desirable treasures.

For that reason, sales figures alone were not the main criteria we considered in compiling this year’s edition of “Top Treasures”—our list of the most noteworthy works of art and design that changed hands from June 2007 to June 2008 through auction sales, donations to museums or purchases by arts institutions. Often, as a result of such transactions, these works of fine art from cultures around the world—as well as an array of other items including rare books, ephemera and even films—have ended up in public collections for everyone to see and enjoy.

As in the past, this year’s list is diverse, and the entries are sometimes unexpected. The works are not listed according to monetary value, or in any particular order.


1 Don’t Trouble Your Head
The Austrian sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt produced a remarkable body of works known as “character heads.” Though an academically trained artist whose early works were in a late-Baroque style, Messerschmidt is better known for these 69 curious sculpted heads, a series he started in 1770 and continued to produce for the remaining 13 years of his short life (he died at 47). These heads are an astonishing exploration and depiction of the range of emotions that affect and afflict humans. They are the embodiment of Messerschmidt’s acute, perhaps obsessive, interest in pathognomy—the study of the physical expression of passions and emotions, particularly as expressed by voice, gestures or facial expression. Cast in lead, a tin alloy, or, less frequently, carved in alabaster—which was rarely used in the 18th century—these grippingly expressive heads illustrate a breadth of extreme emotions. It’s hardly surprising that the start of this series coincided with a progressive breakdown of Messerschmidt’s mental and emotional stability—and his resulting dismissal from an academy in Vienna.

This year the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles acquired one of these remarkable heads, The Vexed Man (1775), rare because it is carved in alabaster and had remained in a private collection since the 19th century. According to the Getty, recent scholarship suggests that the artist “had no intention of publicizing these works. Rather, they were a form of ritual catharsis to rid him of the spirits, which apparently invaded his psyche.” But 10 years after his death, 49 of them were exhibited (The Vexed Man is number 21). Because Messerschmidt didn’t title any of his troubling heads, the cataloguers apparently applied their own names to the sculptures. The Getty example does not look so much vexed as deeply pained. —R.M

2 Bringing Home the Bacon
The Francis Bacon market is exploding. In 2007 alone, Bacon works at auction brought more than $250 million. In May his monumental Triptych, 1976, painted in muted, if not lugubrious tones, became the most expensive work of contemporary art sold publicly, bringing $86.3 million. It might, however, be a bargain per square inch: Each panel measures approximately a staggering 6 by 5 feet. Sotheby’s announced a European private buyer, but other sources named London-based Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. —R.M.

3 Seasons en Suite
In 1872–73, French Impressionist Camille Pissarro painted four markedly horizontal landscapes representing the four seasons, for Paris banker and collector Achille Arosa. When Arosa’s collection was sold in 1891, the works were dispersed, but they were reunited in 1901 and have remained together ever since. At Christie’s in November, Les Quatre Saisons brought $14.6 million, an auction record for the artist. —R.M.

4 Timber!
Los Angeles-based artist Charles Ray’s “conceptualist realist” works based on ordinary subjects—even his own geeky, sculptural self-portrait—often have an air of isolation or self-containment. A decade ago, Ray found a huge, fallen tree that he cut up into sections. From those, he cast fiberglass copies that craftsmen in Osaka replicated in Japanese cypress (hinoki). The Art Institute of Chicago acquired Hinoki (2007), Ray’s 38-foot-long, 2,100-pound sculpture that reassembles the big tree from those handcrafted parts. —E.M.G.

5 Atlas of Discovery
Thane K. Pratt gave the Bishop Museum in Honolulu the 1858 atlas of the U.S. Exploring Expedition (vol. VIII, on mammalogy and ornithology, to be precise). Led by U.S. Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, the six-ship, 1838–41 expedition sailed to 280 islands, mostly in the Pacific Ocean. Its crews documented the flora and fauna they collected in atlases like this one, of which fewer than 100 were produced. The Bishop’s copy belonged to Wilkes himself. —E.M.G.

6 Otherworldly Jewels
Brooklyn-born jewelry designer Arthur Smith created unconventional necklaces, bracelets and other funky baubles that were inspired by Surrealism, biomorphicism and what used to be called “primitivism.” His companion and heir, Charles Russell, donated 20 definitive examples of Smith’s work to the Brooklyn Museum, along with his tools and sketches, as well as period photos of models wearing the modernist innovator’s pieces. —E.M.G