https://theartillustrator.com The Art Illustrator Wed, 10 Dec 2025 10:43:50 +0000 https://theartillustrator.com en https://theartillustrator.com/Cracking-the-Egg Wed, 10 Dec 2025 10:43:50 +0000 The Art Illustrator https://theartillustrator.com/Cracking-the-Egg Cracking the Egg by Georgina Adam Some unanswered questions surround the sale of the Fabergé trophy piece <img width="886" height="591" width_o="886" height_o="591" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ba739f526bc1de7845d8df90ddf1f1788c87b86df3dd22ba587928148fedefa0/Faberges-Winter-Egg-web-Katherine-Hardy.jpg" data-mid="241628510" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/886/i/ba739f526bc1de7845d8df90ddf1f1788c87b86df3dd22ba587928148fedefa0/Faberges-Winter-Egg-web-Katherine-Hardy.jpg" />Illustration © Katherine Hardy At Christie’s on 2 December Fabergé’s Winter Egg—the ultimate example of Russian imperial excess— sold for a cracking £22.9m. The 14 cm-high piece is studded with 4,500 diamonds and conceals a tiny basket of bright flowers inside its icy exterior: this was the third time it set an auction record for any work by Fabergé. It sold to the London dealers Wartski, who immediately posted on Instagram that it was “returning to the Wartski nest after over 100 years”. Kieran McCarthy, the co-managing director of the firm, confirmed to me that he was the successful bidder in the room, encouraged (he said) by his dog Drummer. “It was an absolute bargain price, because now was the worst possible moment to sell the egg,” he said. “And it indeed went well under the unpublished estimate of £20m-£30m [which did not include fees]. We didn’t buy it for a client, but for trade,” he added. Why was it such a bad moment? “It couldn’t sell to Russia, which is of course prohibited, and indeed Christie’s apparently rejected several potential bidders before the sale. And an American buyer would be paying a stiff tariff now,” McCarthy explained. Christie’s noted that online and in the saleroom it pointed out: “We remain committed to complying with all relevant sanctions laws, including any applicable luxury goods prohibitions, and all relevant AML regulations.” The egg last sold for £8.9m in 2002. The buyer then was Sheikh Saud Al-Thani of Qatar, who was at the time the world’s biggest art buyer and was avidly—even obsessively—buying in different fields, including antiquities, photography, natural history, Islamic art, art deco and even vintage bicycles. But in 2005 he was accused of misappropriating government funds and briefly placed under house arrest. Sheikh Saud died in 2014 aged just 48, and apparently the egg went to his family, who might have been the sellers this month—unless it had already gone to another owner. Along with the Winter Egg, another 47 lots of Fabergé items were on the block, all from the same “princely collection”. Christie’s was not to be drawn further about the seller, of course, nor was McCarthy, although he did say that the guarantee on the egg was given at the “last moment” and that he was not the guarantor. The Winter Egg has a fascinating back story. Made in 1913 for Emperor Nicholas II, it left Russia after the 1917 Revolution, when the Soviets nationalised vast art collections from palaces and churches, then sold them abroad to buy machinery, a campaign known as “treasures for tractors”. It was acquired by Wartski for £450 between 1929 and 1933, when the average wage was around £55 per year. Wartski sold it to the Third Lord Alington, or “Naps”, who was described by one biographer as “well cultivated, bisexual, with sensuous, meaty lips, a distant, antic charm, a history of mysterious disappearances, and a streak of cruelty.” The egg itself also disappeared for a time, then reappeared at auction twice before the 2002 sale. Persistent rumours hold that it was never paid for in 2002. Neither Christie’s nor Wartski would comment, but Sheikh Saud did leave a trail of other debts at his untimely death. Everyone agrees on one thing. “It is without doubt the towering masterpiece of the Imperial Eggs, it is gasp-makingly beautiful,” said Geoffrey Munn, a Fabergé specialist and formerly of Wartski, while McCarthy added: “It is simply the greatest Russian work of art ever.” 11 December 2025 https://theartillustrator.com/The-Cost-of-Art Wed, 03 Dec 2025 08:15:22 +0000 The Art Illustrator https://theartillustrator.com/The-Cost-of-Art How much should art cost? by&nbsp;Janelle Zara The pitfalls and paradoxes dealers, collectors and artists face when pricing art. <img width="935" height="640" width_o="935" height_o="640" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/27552cbfa01f256baef004cbcaf8ecea262688e79f7f6e7d0b7daaff74b355fa/384_ar_Art_Price_Web_Katherine_Hardy_Illustration-copy.jpg" data-mid="241345758" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/935/i/27552cbfa01f256baef004cbcaf8ecea262688e79f7f6e7d0b7daaff74b355fa/384_ar_Art_Price_Web_Katherine_Hardy_Illustration-copy.jpg" />Illustration © Katherine Hardy In the cyclical booms and busts of the art market, downturns tend to reverse prevailing trends. In 2015, for example, the reign of the Zombie Formalism trend died of a 7% contraction in global sales. In Miami that year, Jeffrey Deitch and Larry Gagosian mounted the figurative group show Unrealism in its wake, officially anointing figuration as the art market’s next big thing. The art economy recovered, and figuration ascended until the next inflection point in 2022, when, with rising interest rates, prevailing trends again began to reverse. Confident collectors became cautious, expanding galleries downsized, and during this year’s autumn fairs, headlines boasted of Millennials’ rising interest in Old Masters, the ulti- mate referendum to the ultra-contemporary bubble that just burst. Each of these trends underwent textbook asset price inflation, whereby low interest rates send the demand for excess wealth storage skyrocketing one of many ways financialisation has fundamentally changed the culture of collecting. Now in the third consecutive year of contraction, high prices are under scrutiny as being out of sync with real long term value, as well as a barrier to entry for potential new collectors. In response, dealers are becoming more flexible, even if only behind the scenes. In an interview with the journalist Marion Maneker, Larry Gagosian defied conventional wisdom and supported the lowering of primary prices: “Like any market, you have to adjust.” In the shadow of roiling political turmoil and economic uncertainty, as well as the ongoing closures of galleries struggling to make ends meet, the debate between dealers and artists, and buyers and sellers, is: how much is art really worth? Great expectations In the speculative market, high prices can be justified by the promise that they will even continue to rise. Or, “if you’re asking $100,000 for an artwork”, the collector Jeff Magid wrote in Artnews, ideally “it might retain some financial value”. This expectation can often end in disappointment, particularly in the growing arena of private sales. Lately, says the adviser Mattia Pozzoni, transactions will stall due to sellers’ “anchoring”: “Many bought near the top and don’t want to ‘let go’ at today’s clearance levels, while others keep citing comps from a frothier cycle.” As the Gagosian director Harmony Murphy points out, auction records have limited accuracy in determining a work’s long-term value. Using Sotheby’s owner Patrick Drahi’s anonymous bidding on a Francis Bacon triptych at his own auction house in 2020 as an example, she says, “they are buying their own inventory at record just to assign value to something”. Outsized expectations on returns might be traced to younger collectors’ skewed vision of older generations, says Brian Butler, the owner of Los Angeles gallery 1301PE. “They only hear the stories of the great successes, and none of the mistakes.” The reality is that even within celebrated collections, the majority of works depreciate, and recognition is rarely immediate. Joy Simmons, an early patron of David Hammons, Mark Bradford and Mickalene Thomas, is often asked who she is interested in. “They see that I’ve been successful in collecting artists when they were younger,” she says, “But 90% of my collection is not making headlines, and the ones who are having a moment right now, for the most part, I’ve held on to for quite some time.” Different systems of value “The art world has always been about prices,” says the University of Chicago professsor of economics David Galenson, echoing a commonly repeated phrase. But according to an essay for the arts organisation e-flux by Andrea Fraser, an artist and profes- sor at the University of California Los Angeles, the “emergence of art as a financial asset” in the early 2000s split the market into its own autonomous subfield within the art world. One consequence is that the market increasingly embraces the language and fast-tracked expectations of the financial industry. At the height of the ultra-contemporary bubble, Murphy recalls, “Everyone wanted to buy into an artist as they were IPO-ing [Initial Public Offer], and expected everything to ten times within a year.” The focus of market conversations also tends to fall squarely on prices rather than art, adds the dealer Laurel Gitlen. “We’re not really talking about ideas.” Fraser’s essay outlines how the market espouses different preferences and values from other art world subfields: while academia emphasises ideas, and exhibitions trade in experience, the market is measured in dollars. “The market loves paintings,” says John Schmid of the Chicago gallery Ackerman Clarke, “due in part to its long history, but also the fact that it’s ripe for consumption” with its relative ease of shipping, storage and display. In fact, according to the latest collector survey conducted by UBS and Art Basel, paintings comprised 64% of dealer sales in 2023. Conceptual sculpture, meanwhile, “tends to require more space and isn’t always as approachable or straightforward to a private collector”, says Avery Semjen, a Modern and contemporary art specialist at Phillips. Consequently, its prices, even among institutionally celebrated artists, offer a glimpse into a world relatively untouched by speculation. At Phillips’s Modern and contemporary sale in New York in February, where a 2022 Marina Perez Simão painting sold for $279,400, a wall-mounted shelf by Haim Steinbach took just $40,640. In September, a 2002 Paul Pfeiffer sculpture from a body of work shown in his traveling museum survey (2023-25) sold for $15,480 at Phillips. And at Ackerman Clarke, conceptual sculpture starts at $3,500, a price Schmid needs to support with additional private sales and “other things I don’t want to do”. We do need a little speculation There are many benefits of paying living artists more for their art, including higher standards of living and greater access to resources. The artist Alexander Kroll says strong sales have allowed him to scale up and experiment further. But, conversely, “The attempt to financialise art gets to very dangerous zones of sterility,” where artists are incentivised to repeat commercially successful bodies of work. There is no guarantee that money improves the quality of art. “In fact sometimes it makes it worse.” How much are collectors willing to bet on an unknown name with no guaranteed returns on investment? To attract new collectors in their 30s and 40s, Simmons recommends the $2,500 to $5,000 range. Fellow collector Alain Servais puts his own number at $10,000 to $15,000, while Dean Valentine says $8,000. Faced with increased costs for rent, shipping, employing staff and more, Gitlen says galleries showing works priced under $10,000 “are almost certainly losing money”. But by also representing more established artists and foregoing a permanent brick-and-mortar space, she is able to set emerging artists between $3,500 and $5,000. Remaining accessible to institutions and other artists “goes a long way in establishing peer respect and longevity”, she says. “It also allows an artist to experiment and build before the price point gets too high.” Embracing the investment mindset According to Georgia Stylianides, an adviser and quantitative analyst, the best collectors “aren’t just picking winners, they’re helping grow them”. On Instagram, she recommends that collectors adopt a venture capitalist (VC) mindset. “Every work of art is basically an option on an artist’s future cultural relevance,” she says, and like any VC’s investment portfolio, most bets will flop. Out of thousands of artists, she adds, a small sliver may go on “to fundamentally shift our perceptions of art”, but “those works are the ones that will define a collection’s long-term value”. For Butler, investing in the artists of one’s time is “the adventure of being part of culture”, but in the decade after founding his gallery in 1992, he noticed collectors showing more and more interest in finding “some margin in the market”. Burnt by investments in artists who failed to withstand the test of time. Financially or otherwise—risk-averse collectors are now increasingly looking away from the present toward the past, where hindsight is 20/20. As the market contraction continues, the reversal Butler would like to see now is collectors going back in time in a different way: to simply buying what they like. 01 December 2025 https://theartillustrator.com/The-Louvre-Heist Wed, 05 Nov 2025 22:50:34 +0000 The Art Illustrator https://theartillustrator.com/The-Louvre-Heist The Louvre Heistby Georgina Adam Theft is just the beginning, what happens after a jewellery heist is the question.<img width="1772" height="1181" width_o="1772" height_o="1181" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8d0d3211eace4ef5aac26a40b53df2557c7ff6331421d8ab3978d1ed104e567a/384_AME_Louvre_Heist_Fencing_NEW.jpg" data-mid="240310534" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8d0d3211eace4ef5aac26a40b53df2557c7ff6331421d8ab3978d1ed104e567a/384_AME_Louvre_Heist_Fencing_NEW.jpg" />Illustration © Katherine Hardy “Hare-brained!” so says Jane Levine, a former federal prosecutor and ex-chief global compliance officer at Sotheby’s, talking about the scheme to steal eight pieces of royal jewellery from the Musée du Louvre on 19 October. The four thieves, who put cones around their furniture elevator van (stolen, natch), took just seven minutes to break into the elaborately gilded Apollo Gallery in the museum, smash glass cases and snatch the booty. They hot-footed it off on scooters with some of France’s “crown jewels”—in truth, Napoleonic-era 19th-century tiaras, necklaces and earrings owned by three queens, Marie Amélie, Hortense and Marie-Louise—and estimated at a cool $100m. In their haste they actually dropped Empress Eugénie’s crown and scattered plenty of DNA around the site of the crime. “Knuckleheads!” says Jim Wynne, who specialised in art theft during his 30-year career at the FBI’s major Theft Squad and co-founded, with Levine, The Art Risk Group, which investigates art theft and fraud. But stealing the jewels is one thing—disposing of the loot is another. I asked Wynne what happens next. “These pieces are going to be very difficult to sell, because there has been world-wide publicity,” he says. “The pieces with diamonds and gems can be disassembled. The thieves can have the diamonds recut and melt the gold to sell that separately. But the point is, what was their motivation? Did they have a fence [receiver of stolen property] lined up? Or was the motivation a ransom? Finally, and this is ultra rare, could it be a commission theft?” he asks. “The scheme to transform these jewels into money depends entirely on identifying completely crooked intermediaries,” Levine says. “These pieces are unique and the case has now received world-wide publicity; they are on the Interpol database. Everyone knows what these jewels are, [the thieves] either have lined up somebody equally crooked, or they're going to identify other crooks. What remains to be seen is if they were smart enough to be thinking that stealing ancient jewellery would be better, because it's not going to be recorded, it's not going to be marked, like some of the more modern things, and be easier to sell.” So far four people have been charged with the heist, all come from the impoverished area of Seine-Saint-Denis in the Paris suburbs, and French police have already said that they are “local petty criminals” and unlikely to be connected with organised crime. As far as motivations go, ransom seems to be ruled out, since the jewels were not privately insured. A commission theft seems vanishingly unlikely, according to Wynne. The best hope for recovery, Levine says, is “flipping”—persuading one or more of those arrested to give information on the whereabouts of the jewels, in return for a lighter sentence. “[The thieves] may not have expected to be caught so fast or realised that the whole world is watching them. And you know, the prosecutor has been saying in the press repeatedly, tell us where they are, and that will be a factor in leniency. Maybe someone will crack and start talking,” Levine says. Still, at the time of writing, the jewels remained unrecovered... 06 November 2025 https://theartillustrator.com/Pace-Gallery-65 Wed, 01 Oct 2025 09:19:26 +0000 The Art Illustrator https://theartillustrator.com/Pace-Gallery-65 Pace Gallery 65th Anniversary by Tim Schneider<img width="1772" height="1181" width_o="1772" height_o="1181" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d2763da74cddc3a19b2df212b4e7a9c4979a7f9d55581a790e86bb4a10aa09c2/383_Pace-Gallery-65-Anniversary.gif" data-mid="240325512" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d2763da74cddc3a19b2df212b4e7a9c4979a7f9d55581a790e86bb4a10aa09c2/383_Pace-Gallery-65-Anniversary.gif" /> Illustration © Katherine Hardy Looking at recent headlines, you could be excused for thinking the traditional dealer model is falling apart. Look a bit deeper, however, and New York galleries are alive with exhibitions commemorating anniversaries of a decade or more in business. The trend offers a heartening counterpoint to the earthquake afflicting the sector this year. Pace Gallery has been hosting a series of exhibitions tied to its 65th birthday this year, most recently a group show in Geneva titled Pace: 65 Years (until 7 November). Arguably more encouraging than the longevity of that multi-continental empire are the milestone exhibitions by smaller galleries now based in a single city, if not a single space. Sperone Westwater on the Bowery rang in its 50th year with a show that opened on 5 September, as did Hal Bromm, whose group exhibition 50: The View From Tribeca runs until 29 November. Further uptown, the co-founders of the Chelsea dealership Albertz Benda have curated ten: an anniversary (until 18 October) to cap their tenth jubilee. Downturn vets Established midway on the timeline between these galleries are three other veterans who have weathered market turbulence more than once. Jane Lombard, who launched her eponymous gallery in 1995, is showing 30 x 30: A Selection of Thirty Artists Over Thirty Years (until 25 October). Over email, Lombard calls the industry’s recent tremors a “natural” part of its ongoing evolution, adding as an example: “A major fair cancels, and the headlines echo it for weeks, but often what’s happening is a period of reflection and recalibration. That can be healthy.” Seconding these sentiments is Yancey Richardson, whose group show commemorating her photography- and film-centric gallery’s third decade closed on 15 August. “There has always been a continual cycle of galleries closing while new galleries arrive on the scene with fresh energy,” she says. Headquartered only a block away from Lombard’s gallery, James Cohan is still reflecting on a quarter-century of his own gallery a few months after closing the corresponding anniversary show in late July. “We live so much in the present because you’re only as good as your next exhibition and the next sale, but understanding both the successes and the failures is a valuable experience,” he says. Lessons learned Cohan’s endurance has beaten at least one early prediction; in 1982, he was fired from his first gallery job after ten weeks. “I was told I probably didn’t belong in the art world,” he says, chuckling. But years of subsequent work for the dealers John Weber and Paula Cooper changed his trajectory. One crucial point he gleaned from his time with these figures was the value of cementing his perspective on the primacy of serving artists above everyone—including collectors. “You’ve made the choice to represent or show that artist, but it’s their ass that’s on the line. It’s incredibly vulnerable for them,” Cohan says. “When you appreciate that, your value systems are in the right place.” Asked for the most important lesson from her 30 years in business, Richardson points to learning to trust her gut instincts when considering new artists. The few times she’s been “swayed by other voices” to ignore her reservations, it has been “a disappointment, if not a downright disaster”. Conversely, when she has allowed her excitement about an artist to overrule what appeared to be long odds of success, the return on her gambles have proven “extraordinary”. More than the marketplace According to Lombard, her gallery’s adaptability has come partly from working with artists grappling with grave political realities. These include Dan Perjovschi, who navigated repression under Communism in Romania, and Via Lewandowsky, who escaped East Germany. Their stories inspire her “to keep going, evolving and continue sustaining a gallery that gives space to voices that matter”. Also aiding the business’s growth has been the gradual evolution of Lombard’s approach to team-building. “In those early days, roles within galleries were far less defined and everyone did a bit of everything,” she says. But her operation has become “more structured” over time while still “maintaining a spirit of collaboration”. One last consideration for longevity: validation of, and sales to, museums. Cohan calls institutional support the gallery’s “gold standard”—because they take the long view of art history, and their endowments commit them to acquiring art no matter the market cycle. “There’s a lot of noise out in the world, but the fundamentals of our business march on,” he says. 02 September 2025 https://theartillustrator.com/Sotheby-s-What-s-Next Wed, 01 Oct 2025 09:36:43 +0000 The Art Illustrator https://theartillustrator.com/Sotheby-s-What-s-Next What's next for Sotheby's? by Georgina Adam<img width="1772" height="1181" width_o="1772" height_o="1181" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/988dd4127417e13c8f7102bbb53e4d32d1a10e6b6a72ca30c4f7ec3ee1a158d5/381_Sotheby-s_Sand_Dunes.jpg" data-mid="238892262" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/988dd4127417e13c8f7102bbb53e4d32d1a10e6b6a72ca30c4f7ec3ee1a158d5/381_Sotheby-s_Sand_Dunes.jpg" /> Illustration © Katherine Hardy The whole art&nbsp;market—dusting the sand off its feet as it prepares for the autumn season—can talk about nothing but the New Yorker ’s recent deep dive into Sotheby’s and its owner Patrick Drahi. The author, Sam Knight, among many revelations, wrote that Drahi told the French Senate in 2022 that he did not buy Sotheby’s for power or influence, but intended to triple the value of his investment. Well, that doesn't seem to be working out well so far. According to the data analysis firm ArtTactic, auction sales for the first half of the year at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips fell by 6.2% in the first half of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024. Sales of post-war and contemporary&nbsp;art&nbsp;dropped 19.3% and Impressionist and Modern&nbsp;art&nbsp;fell by 7.7%, according to&nbsp;ArtTactic. But Drahi comes across—like many who entered the business before him—as an entrepreneur who thinks that he can make big bucks in the&nbsp;art&nbsp;world, even where others have failed. Hard on the heels of the article came the announcement that Sotheby’s is starting a programme of auctions, masterclasses, panel discussions and exhibitions slated for Abu Dhabi in December. That month will see auctions offering jewellery, watches, property and cars alongside an “exhibition of international fine art”. Interestingly, the programme is in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office; last year Drahi sold a minority stake in Sotheby's to ADQ, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund. Is this another step towards Abu Dhabi taking over the auction house? Asked about this, the firm just sent again the press release from a year ago announcing the minority investment. While this has not happened—yet—what seems sure is that Sotheby’s is increasingly targeting the luxury goods market&nbsp;rather than&nbsp;art. The press release for the Abu Dhabi programme puts Josh Pullan, the head of the global luxury division at Sotheby's, front and centre. He is quoted as saying the firm is “cementing our position as a global powerhouse for luxury”, continuing: “With the Middle East—and the UAE in particular—as one of the most dynamic drivers of the luxury industry, we could have chosen no better home to do this than Abu Dhabi.” Drahi, according to the New Yorker article, does not seem very concerned with the fine art&nbsp;side of the business, despite owning almost $1bn of the bluest of blue-chip&nbsp;art, from Picasso, Magritte, Bacon, Chagall, Dubuffet, Giacometti, Léger through to Kandinsky. There is an interesting insight from Antoine Champagne, the editor of the French magazine Reflets , who sees Drahi as the man with two pockets: one for tangible assets such as art, the other for his holding company Altice. Time only will tell whether Drahi’s pivot to luxury and to the Middle East, which lacks a broad base of collectors for art, pays off in the long term, and if he will finally grow the company to $8bn, a figure that Sotheby’s contested in the&nbsp;article. What does seem certain is that Sotheby's and Christie’s are moving in different directions, and this could present a great opportunity for the latter to focus on expertise, the personal connections to specialists, getting in consignments and the more traditional side of the art&nbsp;business. The question is, will that be enough? 05 September 2025 https://theartillustrator.com/NextGen-Collectors Tue, 03 Jun 2025 21:11:57 +0000 The Art Illustrator https://theartillustrator.com/NextGen-Collectors My five takeaways about NextGen collectors by Georgina Adam <img width="827" height="551" width_o="827" height_o="551" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/07390ffb23d22d4346cc731d061b9c306fa9ca2c821141e870389b1fa2abe1fd/AME_Next_Gen_Katherine_Hardy_Illustration_RCA.jpg" data-mid="234138089" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/827/i/07390ffb23d22d4346cc731d061b9c306fa9ca2c821141e870389b1fa2abe1fd/AME_Next_Gen_Katherine_Hardy_Illustration_RCA.jpg" /> Illustration © Katherine Hardy I have spent the past few months researching NextGens—notably the millennials and Gen Z individuals who are in their 30s and 40s now—and how, or indeed, if they collect art. This is a really hot topic, because as we know, their parents and grandparents are passing on, and NextGens are set to inherit eye-watering sums of money, along with, in some cases, significant art collections. Some hair-raising figures are advanced for the amount of money, real estate and assets of all kinds that will cascade down to NextGens in the next 20 years—around $84tn, maybe even more. And it is important from the art market point of view, because the trade is relying on them to start buying art where their parents left off. But will they? And if so, what will they buy?Here are five things I have learned:1. They don’t have the same taste&nbsp;as their parents. Well, duh! Few want to imitate their parents or grandparents, and in addition they are not prepared to pay the prices the most storied artists have commanded until a few years ago. There are many artists who do not necessarily light the fire of the younger buyer, from Jasper Johns to Robert Rauschenberg or James Rosenquist, let alone Old Masters… NextGens have different tastes, liking women artists, Surrealists, Basquiat, KAWS and even Banksy. 2. They are motivated by causes&nbsp;their parents probably didn’t pay much attention to. Climate change is one: a 2023 Bank of America report noted that NextGen are two-and-a-half times more likely than older donors to mention climate change as one of the top three causes that are most important to them. Gender equality, racial tolerance and questions of identity are also important. 3. Distrust of institutions&nbsp;. The curator Fatoş Üstek told me: “After the Second World War, a citizen would think if my government makes a decision, it is the right decision... But after the 1970s, society and the Gen Z, who are the children of that generation, started not to trust the government. And that impacts on cultural institutions as well.” And are we surprised? Some traditional sources of authority, from the church to politicians, have hardly gained anyone’s confidence these days. 4. Which leads on to influences&nbsp;. NextGen generally turn to the internet as their main source of information, from news to researching artists. “Social media plays a huge part in this. You’re able to see what someone has on their wall at home, on a post on their Instagram. Young collectors... follow the influencers, and they want to be part of that. It is social endorsement amplified by social media,” Joe Kennedy of London’s Unit Gallery told me. 5. Do they want stuff&nbsp;? With the “sharing economy”, many urbanites do not even possess a driving licence, let alone a car, being happy to use Zipcars, Uber etc. And as I noted in a previous podcast, experiences, “fun”, are often more important than possessions to NextGens. Now, this could evolve: art is one of the ultimate trophies and I don’t see a Picasso, say, losing its position as a signifier of status and wealth any time soon. But there seems little doubt in my mind that the art trade needs to adapt what it offers to this new generation, its tastes, influences and motivations.• Georgina Adam’s new book NextGen collectors and the Art Market will appear later this year in the collection Hot Topics in the Art World , published by Lund Humphries and Sotheby’s Institute of Art 05 June 2025 https://theartillustrator.com/Is-the-Future-Antique Wed, 02 Apr 2025 15:44:02 +0000 The Art Illustrator https://theartillustrator.com/Is-the-Future-Antique Is the Future Antique?by Georgina Adam <img width="1772" height="1181" width_o="1772" height_o="1181" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e4ddbf1196b0aa223e7da68d72752d0e911ac96bd0689d9ebeebbca1a2624521/377_Returning_to_the_antique.jpg" data-mid="229162743" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e4ddbf1196b0aa223e7da68d72752d0e911ac96bd0689d9ebeebbca1a2624521/377_Returning_to_the_antique.jpg" /> Illustration inspired by Galerie Flore’s verdant stand at TEFAF © Katherine Hardy Don’t cry victory yet, antique dealers. Boring brown furniture remains difficult, even impossible to shift. Some other antique fields are unfashionable, such as tapestries, porcelain and silver—sectors that were deeply collected a couple of generations ago. And yet, there are as always exceptions for the unusual and the exceptional. I visited The European Fine Art Fair (Tefaf) in Maastricht two weeks ago, and was blown away, as always, by the range and quality of what was on sale. The rigorous vetting is exemplary, with the result that only tip-top works are offered. But what really interested me was that there seemed to have been an uptick in sales of traditional works after decades of concentration on Modern and contemporary art. Now, obviously, Tefaf’s clientele is self-selecting, in that the dealers invite their clients who may well be dedicated collectors in their field anyway. And there is a stunning institutional presence—over 500 museums were invited, from all over the world. But even so, the list of sales is instructive. Who would have thought that French Renaissance ceramics by followers of Bernard Palissy, presented in a striking moss-covered grotto by the Brussels-based Galerie Flore, would find buyers for ten pieces, including two US museums and private collectors? <img width="827" height="572" width_o="827" height_o="572" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a8e455178c442b22d7092ca3977708a4c2fb689b0aacdde61dc198e73712ca43/Galerie-Flore_01.jpg" data-mid="229193192" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/827/i/a8e455178c442b22d7092ca3977708a4c2fb689b0aacdde61dc198e73712ca43/Galerie-Flore_01.jpg" />Mossy installation by Thierry Boutemy courtesy Galerie Flore. Or that the silver specialist Koopman sold 12 silver-gilt dinner plates commissioned through the Scheggi Brothers for the Borghese palace? Or that a magnificent 16th-century tapestry shown by the Barcelona gallery Artur Ramon Art sold—to a Dutch institution—for €800,000. Or that Rome’s Alessandra di Castro could find buyers for sculpture, pottery and furniture within a few hours of the opening day? Lewes Smith of Koopman says the gallery sold much better this year, both to new and established clients, than during the previous two. “We had an enormous number of sales at Tefaf this year,” he says. “And I think it is because there is a whole price adjustment in the market. There are now price points at which people feel able to buy again.” He cited $100,000 as the “sweet spot”, noting that it was “harder” at the $2m level. The point he makes about prices is important, and was also cited by Amaury de la Moussaye of Galerie Flore. “We sell contemporary works and traditional ones. Usually we sell about a third traditional [to] two-thirds contemporary, but at Tefaf for the first time in 15 years, that proportion was reversed,” he said. He thinks this is partly due to prices coming down. “They are ridiculously low compared to contemporary art, particularly when you take into account the rarity of the works on offer,” he told me, noting that the ceramics were priced from €20,000 to €70,000. “There is definitely a return to older art,” he said. And while he obviously has every interest in saying this, the results of Tefaf this year do seem to bear out his words. 03 April 2025 https://theartillustrator.com/Testing-the-Market Tue, 04 Mar 2025 13:35:27 +0000 The Art Illustrator https://theartillustrator.com/Testing-the-Market Old Master Market is Put to the Testby Georgina Adam <img width="886" height="590" width_o="886" height_o="590" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/21b7400403c0de292b8d2440d345898a2c5170cbbb133429901db0f0673128e5/376_Testing_The_Market_web_Katherine_Hardy_illustration.jpg" data-mid="227626783" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/886/i/21b7400403c0de292b8d2440d345898a2c5170cbbb133429901db0f0673128e5/376_Testing_The_Market_web_Katherine_Hardy_illustration.jpg" /> Illustration by Katherine HardyAdaptation of Adriaen Coorte’s&nbsp;Wild Strawberries in a Kraak Wan-Li Bowl We are constantly being told that there are new buyers for Old Masters out there, even if recent auction history hardly bears this out. Earlier this year the New York sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s in the sector were “bumpy and uneven”, and while better than the year before, failed to live up to pre-sale expectations. If this was due to the weakness of the offerings (and the withdrawal, at the 11th hour, of Christie’s star El Greco painting of Saint Sebastian), then the news of an impending sale at Sotheby’s should provide a better picture of the market for Old Masters today. The collection of Jordan and Thomas A. Saunders III is, according to the auction house, “one of the finest Old Master collections assembled in our times”, put together over almost 30 years by a New York banker and his wife. Boasting 56 works, the group is expected to fetch up to $120m when it goes under the hammer in May. The works range from Guardi and Canaletto to Jan Davidsz. de Heem, Luis Meléndez and Adriaen Coorte; they are all highly attractive and in tip-top condition. “The Saunders were true collectors who fell in love with each picture, the works really are the best of the best with impeccable provenance,” says the Old Master dealer Johnny Van Haeften, who indeed counted them among his clients. How well will they do? They all bear a guarantee, so already have buyers, and collections are always highly prized. However, I will hazard a guess that some will do better than others. In my opinion there are two stand-outs: Still life with Cauliflower, Basket of Fish, Eggs, and Leeks, and Kitchen Utensils (late 1760s) by the Spanish painter Luis Meléndez (est. $5m-$8m). Meléndez works appeal to the modern eye for their boldness and often surpass their pre-sale estimates: this one will set a new record even if it reaches the lower end of the target. The other is Adriaen Coorte, Wild Strawberries in a Kraak Wan-Li Bowl , (est.$2m-$3m). The mysterious artist only painted around 100 works in his lifetime and the bowl and strawberries are a theme he returned to often. A comparable work featuring the same bowl sold for $2.4m in 2022. Again, the simplicity of the work is seductive to the modern eye. Then there are Guardi's detailed views of Venice, the rare and interesting but (dare I say) slightly boring Frans Post, View of the Town of Olinda with Ruins of the Jesuit Church, the River Bibaribe in the Distance (1665) (est. $6m-$8m), the pretty Portrait of Miss Julia Peel (around 1826), by Thomas Lawrence (est. $6m-$8m) or the diamond-shaped Frans Hals portraits, A Boy Playing the Violin and A Girl Singing (around 1628, est. $6m-$8m). For sure, this collection will certainly be a timely test of the sector with an off-the-market-for-decades collection, of impeccable quality and in excellent condition. Rendezvous in New York! 06 March 2025 https://theartillustrator.com/Auction-House-to-Court-House Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:44:42 +0000 The Art Illustrator https://theartillustrator.com/Auction-House-to-Court-House Hair-raising courtroom dramas in the USby Georgina Adam <img width="886" height="591" width_o="886" height_o="591" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0ecdbb33121ab14a686c7ed0e0d06a40896317e1512ccd162df58b1a59f33164/375_Lawsuits_Art_Market_Eye_Illustration_Katherine_Hardy_RCA_Auction_Houses_Court_Houses_Web.jpg" data-mid="226104496" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/886/i/0ecdbb33121ab14a686c7ed0e0d06a40896317e1512ccd162df58b1a59f33164/375_Lawsuits_Art_Market_Eye_Illustration_Katherine_Hardy_RCA_Auction_Houses_Court_Houses_Web.jpg" /> Illustration by Katherine HardyUS courtrooms have recently offered us three new dramas, and while they are on very different subjects, two certainly had my hair standing on end. And those two may be illustrative of today’s art market, which is certainly not what it was a few years ago. Are buyers, faced with falling values, going to court to attempt to recuperate their losses? Or are they justified in their complaints? The judges will decide. The first pits the deep-pocketed Swiss financier and collector Jacob “Jacqui” Safra against Christie’s. In a lengthy complaint filed in January in New York, he blasts the firm for bad faith and fiduciary breaches in valuing and selling parts of his art collection over the past two years. Let’s take a deep breath and look at the story. According to court documents, in 2022 Christie’s advanced over $63m to Safra against the future sales of various collections, to repay a debt he owed to the hedge fund UBS O’Connor. The 670 pieces of art included Old Master pictures, furniture and, importantly, a group of 43 love letters from Albert Einstein to his first wife. Allegedly, since Safra did not pay back the advance, the auction house declared him in default, and has been selling off Safra material in order to recoup its money. There are many more moving parts in this story, but I simplify. In 2023 there were three sales of Old Master paintings, all held “without reserve”—at Safra’s request. They raised around $24m, but the complaint questions Christie’s attributions, saying it led to them selling very badly. Then Christie’s went on to sell the group of Einstein letters in December last year, which were again offered without reserve and made £441,000—way under their estimate of £700,000-£1m. Again, Safra maintains that Christie’s did little to promote the group, resulting in a disappointing result. The bottom line is that Safra is seeking damages equal to the difference between the “fair market value” of the works and the hammer price—plus interest. This is the real hair-raiser: auction doesn’t “do” fair market value—it establishes the price someone will pay in the open market at that moment in time. Sadly for Safra, the market for letters and manuscripts doesn’t seem as good as it was when he bought them in 1996 for $442,500. With inflation, that sum would be $884,686 (£712,667) today. Christie’s will only say: “The property was sold in accordance with the agreement with Mr. Safra. As this has now moved to litigation, we do not intend to comment further.” Then there is the complaint filed in February by Justin Sun (of banana fame) against the mega-collector David Geffen. Sun is seeking the return of Giacometti’s Le Nez , which he bought for over $78.4m in 2021. Sun alleges it was stolen from him by his adviser Xiong Zihan Sydney, who sold it to Geffen in a deal worth $65.5m. But according to Geffen’s lawyer, Tibor Nagy, in exchange for the sculpture (which he “knowingly sold”), Sun received two paintings and $10.5m in cash. “After trying and failing to sell the paintings, he now wants to retrade the deal,” Nagy says. “We call that seller's remorse.” Finally, the other hair-raiser concerns the disastrous exhibition of works “by” Jean-Michel Basquiat at the Orlando Museum of Art in Florida in 2022. An FBI raid was followed by the revelation that all were fakes. The fall-out has been drastic, with the sacking of the museum director, a swathe of resignations and severe financial problems for the institution. Now, in what seems to be an act of ultimate chutzpah, the owners of the collection are seeking almost $20m from the museum’s insurers, on the basis that the works were covered, fake or not. But in their court filings late last year, the two insurance companies said: “[The owners] do not have any valid claim to proceeds from this ‘loss’ since there is no loss to begin with.” No loss! Ouch! We await the outcome of these cases, so my hair can return to normal. 06 February 2025 https://theartillustrator.com/Restitution-Laws Thu, 02 Feb 2023 16:40:36 +0000 The Art Illustrator https://theartillustrator.com/Restitution-Laws New French restitution laws should benefit the market—and maybe force change in Britain too? by Georgina Adam <img width="2008" height="1338" width_o="2008" height_o="1338" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5373a5d48132ce05b0f4febbf4961b183eacafa3b7e549ba2afbd9eb142ed3e2/353-Bachelot-Law-restitution-Parthenon.jpg" data-mid="167035311" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5373a5d48132ce05b0f4febbf4961b183eacafa3b7e549ba2afbd9eb142ed3e2/353-Bachelot-Law-restitution-Parthenon.jpg" /> Illustration by Katherine Hardy This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Washington Principles, the 11-point text published to help resolve issues on Nazi-confiscated art. While the principles are non-binding, they have done much to advance both provenance research and the restitution of looted works, along with a much greater awareness of this issue. But there has been a particular problem in France when a previously looted work has been found in a state museum, since French law forbids the deaccessioning of such works once acquired. Last February the “Bachelot” law (named after Roselyne Bachelot, the then French culture minister) was voted in: it allowed 15 named works in French museums—including Klimt’s Rosiers sous les arbres (around 1905) to be returned to their original owners. And another three laws soon to go before the French parliament will modify the French patrimony code. It will mean that restitution will be greatly accelerated, without an act of parliament being necessary each time. While these new proposed laws are French ones—and they also include the thorny question of restitution of human remains and objects looted from African countries—their impact on the art market and the wider international context seems certain. For a start, they should increase the speed with which identified looted works can come to market; it took almost three years between the heirs claiming the Klimt and the French law to be changed. This process would be greatly accelerated under the new rules. They will also benefit the art market, since today there are often a number of heirs involved in cases and the only equitable solution is to sell the work and divide the total. In addition, a restituted work of art that comes up for sale is “clean” of any suspected provenance issues, while a museum provenance greatly enhances its value: even more reason for the heirs to sell the work. It is no wonder that Christie’s is sponsoring a year-long programme to “educate collectors and buyers”. And, one might add, vendors as well. But in a recent case, Christie’s has been ordered by a French court to return an Adriaen Van Der Werff painting from 1707, The Penitent Magdalene, to the heirs of a French banker and distant relative of the writer Marcel Proust from whom it was allegedly stolen in 1942. Interestingly, the court applied a 1945 French law to order the return of the Nazi-looted art work—which was located abroad. All this shows how global the issue of restitution can be—and how it can have other ramifications. Indeed, the proposed French laws could be relevant to Britain, which has been grappling for generations with the contentious issue of the Parthenon Marbles. The British Museum Act, originally passed in 1902, precludes the return of works from the museum, and has invariably been cited as the reason the Marbles cannot be restored to Greece. The act was also invoked in a test case dating from 2005. It was brought by the heirs of Albert Feldmann, who were claiming four Old Master drawings in the British Museum, looted from the owner‘s home in Czechoslovakia in 1939. The British High Court judge was forced to block the return, citing the act, although perplexingly, at the time a British Museum spokeswoman expressed her “disappointment” at the ruling. The Marbles situation remains as difficult as ever. Might the French examples trigger a bold new approach to the British case as well?Thursday 1 January 2023