Creating the illusion of a bid in the room by an auctioneer to ensure a reserve price is met is perfectly legal and is often done so that Christie’s turns a profit because they are solely commission based and without a sale, Christie’s actually loses money when factoring in storage, transport, and the brokering of the piece which involves many people behind the scenes as well as the auctioneer. Antiquities of the art world tend to sell at bargain price points so Christie’s has put much of its resources into living artists whose works sell in the millions of dollars instead of hundreds, thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most of these newer works have been created within the past 20 – 30 years and provide commentary upon a specific moment in time often one which the purchaser remembers during their own lifetime (e.g. tank man in Tiananmen Square, China)