Business Notes COLLECTIBLES

When the gavel came down and the auctioneer said "Sold," the standing-room- only crowd at Sotheby's in New York City gasped, and then broke into applause. Vincent van Gogh's 1889 masterpiece Irises had just been bought by an unnamed foreign bidder for $53.9 million, the highest price paid for an artwork at auction.

The sale smashed the record set just eight months ago by another Van Gogh, Sunflowers, which was bought by a Japanese insurance company for the seemingly untoppable sum of $39.9 million. Four of the ten highest prices ever paid at art auctions have been fetched by Van Gogh's works during the past two years.The Dutch artist has long been revered for his mesmerizingly bright colors and thick, curvy, even violent brushstrokes, but some experts think the sudden Van Gogh craze defies explanation.

Besides confirming Van Gogh's status, last week's sale reassured collectors that the loss of wealth generated by October's stock crash would not immediately depress the art market. Says Jay Goldinger, editor of the Early Warning Wire financial newsletter: "There are a lot of people out there who are disgusted with the stock market, and some will look more to art."

And to Van Gogh. The irony is that the artist never had an inkling of how precious his work would become. Van Gogh sold only one painting in his life -- The Red Vineyard, for about $80 -- and died a pauper.