Over the past 10 years, the turnover of this particular market has doubled worldwide, from 35.9 billion euros in 2005 to 63.8 billion euros. making investments in art is becoming a trend within everyone’s reach, as well as a way to make really good business.
The most expensive work of art ever was sold in November 2017 and cost USD 450 million, an astronomical figure, probably disproportionate even for a Leonardo da Vinci painting; the funny thing is that this painting is rather “talked about”, as until 2011 it was not even known that it existed, in short: even if it is obviously certified by 4 scholars, there are still doubts that it is a 100% Leonardo da Vinci .
This fact should make us reflect on how much the art market is now quite “pumped up” and that people are pushed to make large investments.
Finally, in this introduction, we underline that an investment in a painting is also defined as an “emotional investment”, that is, you buy that work of art essentially because you like it, THEN we also think about any gain that can be made in the long term and beware: only 3% of people who invest in art do it to speculate.
How to start investing in art
It goes without saying that there are two important factors to ensure that you become an art investor:
have a diversification perspective a wide availability of capital in a large portfolio, including this as a safe haven asset, consider this type of investment long term indeed: very long term.
For a new collector, the art market could appear as an unreachable club of people, once you enter the world of art, you understand that the work you want will be an extension of our personality.
We enter an art gallery, look at the works on display, try to understand them, see if we like them, then talk to the gallery owner, let him explain them to us, already here the work will take on another value in our mind, because the gallery owner will look for it.
to make us understand how to look at it, even better if we can find the artist who built the canvas with his own hands, he will teach us to understand and appreciate it, because the eyes of a non-expert are not the same as those of an expert, just think how many times we have found ourselves wondering:
“Why did those people pay millions of euros for that indecipherable crap?”,this happens very often for modern art you simply don’t know, and to get to know it you need time and dedication. Would you say that the one below is one of the most expensive paintings ever? To see it like this, if you don’t know modern art, it would seem like scribbles, paid almost 150 million dollars.
Is investing in art a safe investment?
A canvas that you can pay 5,000 euros today could be worth 20,000 in 10 or 20 years, if you manage to find the right artist and if you are from an organization and looking for talented artists then you should search for the best free press release sites to target the right audience. And remember that this type of gain is only possible with art, no other type of investment can be like this. highly profitable.
Why buy paintings of the same style for our collection: Anyone who approaches the world of the art market does so in a completely casual way, even if they later discover that investing in art can also become a profitable hobby, as well as fun.
Usually you buy a first painting to embellish the bedroom or the living room, then one work attracts the other, but when you think about making your work of art bear fruit, sometimes you lose sight of the aesthetics, and here the house of a new art collector can appear more like a total confusion of works without a logical thread.
Speaking of paintings (but the same thing can be true for sculptures, jewelry, ceramics, or other type of work of art), if a person begins to approach a particular style, he will also begin to know it in depth, the ultimate goal is not only to have at home a collection of paintings pleasing to the eye, but to have paintings of a certain value and of which you know practically everything, this has as its ultimate goal to specialize in a certain style in order to be able to do good deals by just looking at a painting of a certain style, recognizing the artist’s hand, the era when it was drawn, and the market value of the painting itself.
We must also think about the long term, for example if one day you will have the offer of an Art Gallery to exhibit your collection, or if one day you will have an offer for your entire collection from another enthusiast.
Why not sell a work of art
Maybe you bought 5 paintings by an artist from the place where you live, a living or recently deceased artist who is enjoying great success and you think you have made a bargain.
Selling the 5 canvases together is a mistake, because you devalue both your canvases and the artist’s work and name.
Don’t rush to sell
If a collector is interested in a work you have in your collection, he will make you an appropriate offer, otherwise this offer will increase over time, but selling at 101 because yesterday it was bought at 100, is one of the worst ways to make money with it.
First of all, it is necessary to have the work evaluated: many auction houses make evaluations for free, but try to have the work evaluated by more people, so that you can have extensive references to establish how much to sell, that is to establish the final price that you you will ask, price that will also be influenced by the artist name, by the style (if it is a period that that style is more fashionable or not) and by the historical moment, such as this one, which seems very profitable to buy art.
Selling a work of art has a cost: through an auction house it costs about 10 to 15% of the final value of the work, so if you sell a painting for 1,000 euros, about 150 will go to the auction house that he has beaten (the more valuable the work, the higher the margin for the House).
Selling through an Art Gallery: putting a painting on consignment at an art gallery, on the other hand, assumes that you are not in a hurry, forget this word.
Artists to invest in
As it will be clear, we certainly cannot think that a small saver with a capital of 50, 10 or even 200 thousand euros can invest, can invest in internationally renowned classical painters.
So let’s forget both the Caravaggios and the Van Goghs, but also the modern Picassos, Dalì ‘, Warhol or the contemporary like Angelo Accardi, Alec Monopoly and Eduardo Kobra as there are original paintings for sale available at resonable price that can become easly a medium to long time investment.
However, there are many very good contemporary artists, whose canvases can be brought home even with a few hundred euros.
A canvas that you can pay 5,000 euros today could be worth 20,000 in 10 or 20 years, if you manage to find the right artist, and this type of gain is only possible with art, no other type of investment can be like this. highly profitable.
How to evaluate a work of art
Here, the painful notes of the art market begin: there are international standards, but they are, let’s say, at a ‘private level’, so it is not like in other types of investments, for example gold, where there is the percentage of gold and the international price that determine the cost of an ingot, or for diamonds, where the carats, purity, cut and other factors are able to evaluate exactly, all over the world, the same diamond, with very small fluctuations; in the art market this is not the case.
