When evaluating a potential purchase, an entrepreneur like Courtauld was looking for an assessment finely balanced between market value (a good price), quality as a work of art (a question of informed taste and a good eye), and stature of the artist (now and in the future).

BBC: A Point of View: The art of collecting

Each of the book's chapters is written by a locally based specialist (the authors include auctioneers, academics, consultants and dealers) who examines a country or region's art market history in terms of taste, fashion, value, art types, subjects, sales prices and records.

WSJ: Book Is a Collector's Item

Whether the artist deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence as the long-time stars of the art world is a matter of personal taste, but the sale of "Chinese Girl" appears to have cemented his reputation as a commercial, if not critical, success.

CNN: 'Mona Lisa' of kitsch, most reproduced painting, sells for $1.5m

At a time when much contemporary art has a taste of cardboard about it, it is encouraging to see a true original.

ECONOMIST: A show in London by Grayson Perry, potter-extraordinary

Our cover story profiles a wealthy Dutch woman whose vision of fine art led her to buck the prevailing taste of her time and amass one of the world's finest collections of Van Gogh.

FORBES: Editor's Note

Such literati painting became emblematic of Chinese culture, and several works in the last gallery attest to Dong's posthumous influence on the taste of Qing art patrons.

WSJ: Paths Easy and Daunting | Ming Masterpieces | Artful Recluse | Lacma | Asia Society | By Lee Lawrence

Buffalo Trace's bourbons have gained a reputation as works of art--complex drinks that show the hand of the distiller and taste like the work of a dedicated craftsman, rather than just a bottle of mass-produced, committee-designed drek.

FORBES: Tastemakers: Wine, Beer and Spirits

He also developed a taste for art, and a fine collection, especially of Impressionists.

ECONOMIST: Walter Annenberg

On the way she picked up half a dozen languages and a taste for modern art, on which she spent much of her fortune.

ECONOMIST: Mona Karff