Christie’s Take from Internship Auction Tops Expectations

By Anna Newport

April 20, 2014

Anxious parents flooded Christie’s on Thursday as the auction house staged its first internship bidding war. With record high numbers of applicants for Christie’s 2013 unpaid internship program, the auction house decided to turn a further profit on the country’s ambitious, neurotic youth by auctioning off what it had traditionally given away for free: a coveted internship for the summer of 2014.

The most highly valued spot was Executive Assistant Intern, more affectionately known as “Bitch to the Boss,” which went for $1.2 million to Avery Gaff, daughter of investment banker and Richard Gaff. He outbid four telephone challengers for this contested position. Questioned about his purchase, Gaff said, “This is where our money should be spent: on teaching our children that if you want something, you just have to go out and buy it.”

Mary Kenneth, a sophomore at the University of Chicago, bid herself for the Gold Star Coffee and Maintenance position. “My mom gave me her credit card and told me to go earn a job. This internship will give me first-hand experience in the art world and bring me closer to my future career aspirations of buying beautiful art for a beautiful home.” Ms. Kenneth paid $500,000 for her internship, with some help from American Express Platinum.

Christie’s set a minimum opening bid of $50,000 for internships that dealt only with coffee, telephones and office equipment. These include the Coffee Creator Fellowship ($65,000), the Principal Fax Machine and Letters Overlord ($70,000), and Clean-Up and Coat-Holding Maestro ($82,000). Positions that involved some form of human contact beyond cubicle confinement demanded a starting bid of $100,000. Internships that involved any interaction, however tangential, with actual art, started bidding at $500,000.