For more than a decade, Tobias Meyer was Sotheby’s field general in the consignment war. A slight man with a square jaw and a magnificent head of hair, he was an outsize figure and the keeper of some of the house’s most important relationships. [...]

Meyer’s overnight disappearance offers another potential area of intrigue. The timing of his resignation led some to conclude that he and his salary were offered up as a sacrifice to Sotheby’s angry shareholders. Though his compensation was never disclosed, it is believed to have been enormous. “They certainly did invest very heavily in keeping him, and keeping him happy,” says David Nash. But Loeb has denied that Meyer was meant to be the target of his pressure. Though no great administrator, Meyer was an ambitious dealmaker in a company that Loeb says should be making bigger deals, and Loeb has told some that he views the departure as a sign Sotheby’s isn’t capable of retaining top talent.

A source familiar with Meyer’s thinking says he had become frustrated with the public company’s bureaucracy and was attempting to negotiate a more influential place in the hierarchy, something like a creative-director role. But Ruprecht wasn’t interested in giving Meyer the power he wanted. Since leaving, Meyer is said to have expressed a desire to become “invisible,” and he recently put his Manhattan condo on the market, for $17 million. His mental map of the world’s art treasures should serve him well as a private dealer. There are, however, those who think that if Loeb were calling the shots at Sotheby’s, Meyer might return in some sort of rainmaking role.