I find auctions, sales records and the commercial side of art entirely baffling. I am not saying this as an aesthete pose. I really am genuinely uninterested in the news about who is selling for what. However, a sale last week in New York is intriguing because perhaps it speaks to the real problem with the way such things are reported and the gap between myth and reality in the art trade.

A print by the 1920s Australian artist Ethel Spowers sold at Christie's for more than £50,000. It was expected to fetch maybe £3,000 to £5,000. So a surprise sale has catapulted the comparatively obscure Spowers into a higher price range.

The work in question, Wet Afternoon, is pretty and relaxing to look at. A Japanese influence seems unmistakable in the vista of umbrellas, the slashes of rain, and the use of colour to give solidity as well as interest to the picture. But it is impossible to tie any bigger meaning to the high price paid for this work at this moment. And that is what is so interesting about it.

The reporting of art sales – and beyond that, the figures themselves – create totally false narratives of the supposed value of art. Prices are given historic significance. Does it mean anything that Picasso is now so expensive? Did it mean anything when Klimt set a record? Does it tell us anything profound about our society if rich people buy contemporary art in preference to Old Masters, or vice versa?