The Future of Auction Houses May Depend on Cheap Art
Sotheby’s, Phillips, and others are hoping to scale—but are hindered by the fact that masterpieces are limited in quantity. Furniture, not so much.
A Persian wool-and-silk carpet from a famous weaver in Isfahan, a city in Iran. The carpet is very fine, and the design, typical of Isfahan, is well-drawn.
Photographer: Photograph by Paul Atkinson/Moment Open
The art market is a very small place. Even the most optimistic estimate pegs last year’s global art sales at about $64 billion, or about half the 2017 revenue of Walgreens’s parent company.
Of course, Walgreens sells necessities, and it sells them cheaply. Art, in contrast, is a very expensive, nonessential luxury good. Works in the industry considered “entry level” top out at about $60,000, which is what the Bureau of Labor Statistics lists as the average household expenditure total in the U.S., per year.