Manet Sells For $7.5m

Despite its curvaceous female figure, this painting by Edouard Manet - Femme nue se coiffant (Woman Doing Her Hair) - is as flat, lifeless and boring as it could get. At first glance it looks as though some kids buried her waist-deep in sand on the beach, but no: it's a bed she's sitting on. And where's the light source? Coming through the ceiling? Flesh tones? What flesh tones? As art it's not even third-rate, but as an investment ... ah, now you're talking. It made a record price for a painting sold in France since 1993: $7.5m. Pop it in the family vault for a few years. Forget Paris. Sell it in London or New York, where the insane money is.