In 1995, the Knoedler Gallery, the oldest art gallery in New York (it had been around for 165 years, predating the Civil War and all of the city's museums), purchased an unknown canvas by Mark Rothko. It was sold to Ann Freedman, the gallery's director, for $750,000 (a fire-sale price). The person who brought it to her was Glafir Rosales, a woman from Long Island who didn't have much of an art pedigree but claimed to represent a wealthy anonymous collector, and the story she told about him seemed just plausible enough.—Redhat