The top auction houses are sharks—just not in the way you think

Sotheby's, fresh off layoffs, and Christie's are both perpetual motion machines

When a big company makes a flurry of changes, it can be tricky to tease out where every one of them lands on the spectrum between consequential and cosmetic. The task only gets tougher when it concerns the high-end auction sector, where showmanship, spin, and the subtleties of an increasingly complex business misdirect even the closest observers sometim…