About $2.1 billion of art is offered for sale at the major November auctions in New York. Nearly half of that staggering sum is guaranteed--basically already sold since the auction houses (or others) will buy it at a pre-determined price if a bidder does not--making $1 billion in art already shifting ownership. And much of this month's massive guarantees go to the A. Alfred Taubman Collection at Sotheby's which has guaranteed his estate $500 million for some 500 artworks, ranging from antiquity to contemporary, in four auctions.

The first two sales from Taubman's estate happen this week. Culled from the once-embattled Sotheby's chairman's collection is the "Masterworks” evening sale on Nov. 4 which boasts 77 lots, headlined by Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning, with a total estimate of $374.8 million to $526.5 million.

Also on deck, Christie's will follow offering two major works with guarantees: Amedeo Modigliani’s 1917 nude painting, estimated at more than $100 million, and Roy Lichtenstein’s iconic 1964 painting, “Nurse,” estimated at $80 million.