In 2005, when Takashi Hashiyama, CEO of Japanese tv equipment company Maspro Denkoh, made a decision to auction off the collection of Impressionist paintings owned by his corporation, which include works by Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent van Gogh, he contacted two leading auction houses, Christie's International and Sotheby's Holdings, trying to find their proposals on how they would provide the selection to the sector as perfectly as.