The art market: Features of investing in works of pictorial art

Abstract

This paper estimates the attractiveness of investing in paintings relative to the stock market. The art market is analyzed in the context of heterogeneity in order to identify main trends, including an analysis of the number of lots sold and sales prices for different countries using an extensive sample of open results of painting trades (data obtained contains about 500,000 observations). Heterogeneity of the market is shown even in a separate segment of paintings. The composition of artists in quantitative characteristics, even within isolated groups, is extremely heterogeneous. Based on the sample of re-traded paintings, the effect of the relationship between price and the moment of sale of a painting (the survival model) is analyzed. The probability of selling a painting is estimated depending on the length of the lot placement. With the help of the accelerated life model, factors influencing the speed of the sale of the picture are estimated. The analysis was carried out for different regions of sale and different nationalities of the authors of the paintings. Results obtained can be used when considering investing in art as a tool for portfolio diversification.