You missed buying a portrait of a naked Bea Arthur by a mere $1.9 million

While one might assume it impossible to put a price on dreams, Christie’s did just that last night by affixing a $1.915 million tag on Bea Arthur Naked, John Currin’s infamous topless portrait of the late Maude star, once more standing up for women’s liberation by airing her unfettered breasts. If something seems weird or unsettling about that to you, you’re right: The painting fetched less than its estimated going rate of $2.5 million, a number Christie’s reached through a careful algorithm of calculating the rarity of ever seeing Bea Arthur’s breasts—something not even Currin accomplished, forcing him, like all of us, to use his imagination—then multiplying it by the infamy the painting had accrued since 1991 and the curiosity stoked by Airheads, and finally, completely ignoring the fact that you can see it for free, right now, on the Internet. (Unless it’s on The Daily Beast’s Facebook page, where posting a thumbnail of Bea Arthur Naked got the site and its staff banned for 24 hours. Art, it seems, still has the power to challenge authority.)