Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.

Since I started reporting on the convergence of the art and luxury markets last year, I’ve been asking people in the auction game a simple, rational question: What happens if luxury sales overtake art at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips? The answer tends to be an emphatic: No, that would never happen. Art is—and always will be—the houses’ bread and butter, I’m usually told.