Prices, value and authenticity

Collaborations between artists and fashion or luxury brands connect the world of galleries with the world of products. They raise an artist's visibility and the value of their work.

An artist record is the highest price ever reached by a work by a given artist; in reports you spot it by the dagger beside the name. Interestingly, a record often falls abroad rather than at home.

Blue chip (proven masterworks by the most sought-after artists) is the safest floor of the art market, where value rises steadily and reliably over the long term. It is a safe bet — but that safety comes at the highest price.

A catalogue raisonné is a complete listing of one artist's work, piece by piece. On the art market it acts as the arbiter of authenticity: having a place in it, or not, can decide the entire value of a painting.

Dating establishes which year a work belongs to, and thereby affects both its placement and its price. With conceptual artists there is the added question of whether the date of the idea or the date of physical making decides.

With prints, sculptures and photographs, a work is produced in a predetermined limited number. Controlled scarcity sustains value: a smaller run means a higher price, overproduction pushes it down.

Imitations passed off as genuine works. The risk grows above all with sought-after artists who are no longer living, and the best defence is a vetted source and honest documentation.

Reading auction figures means weighing three metrics at once — total turnover, the number of works sold and the record price. Only together do they make sense; a single figure without context easily misleads.

The average price can be pushed up by a few record sales, whereas the median price (the middle value) shows how an ordinary work is doing. That makes the median a healthier indicator of the market's real state.

Pricing by surface area is a widespread if simplifying method of valuation in which the price rises in proportion to the size of the work. It explains why a large canvas costs several times more than a small one.

Provenance is the history of an artwork's origin and ownership — its pedigree from the moment it left the studio to the present day. And believe us, a pedigree can work wonders on a price.

Rankings of best-selling artists are reference tables from which an artist's position on the market can be read. They work well as a map, but the ranking alone does not tell you everything.

Artists the market comes upon again after years and finally appreciates. It is also a way of restoring credit, in retrospect, to long-overlooked names.

Trend-driven demand is the appetite for whatever everyone simply must have, and it can catapult a work's price upwards. It can evaporate just as fast, which is why we never read records as a certainty.

Ultra-contemporary and young contemporary is the youngest floor of the market, made up of works by the youngest living artists. It can bring rocketing price jumps within a single auction, but it also carries the greatest risk of a bubble.

New tools that document a work's authenticity by technological means, from blockchain certificates to artificial intelligence. The pitfall remains what the database gets filled with.

Wet paint means brand-new works by young artists that travel straight from the studio to auction. It is an alluring floor of the market where prices shoot up fastest — and fall just as fast.

Works on paper are drawings, watercolours and prints, which tend to be more affordable than painting on canvas. That is precisely why they are often the way in for new collectors.