Rarity is Driving the Art Market - artmarketblog.com One of the trends that has emerged since the art market began to soften is the increased desirability of works of art that that have not appeared at auction for a long period of time
significant single owner collections are always highly prized as the collectors have usually made an extra effort to get the highest quality works and the most significant works as well as works that have excellent provenance all of which are characteristics that make a work of art more desirable.
At a time when people are having to justify their purchases far more than they did prior to the financial crisis one of the determining factors when deciding whether or not to make a purchase is the rarity. The question that people are asking when deciding whether to buy a work of art that is having the greatest affect on the art market is “If I do not purchase this work at this current time due to the financial crisis how likely am I to be able to buy a similar work once the financial crisis has ended?”. The answer to this question may very well depend on whether that particular work of art appears on the market on a regular basis or whether similar works appear on the market on a regular basis. In a nutshell, a buyer is more likely to purchase a work regardless of the current financial crisis if the purchase of that work represents an opportunity that is unlikely to be repeated any time soon. There are of course many other factors that can give the perception of rarity but you will have to wait for a future post to hear more about those.
**Nicholas Forrest is an art market analyst, art critic and journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He is the founder of http://www.artmarketblog.com, writes the art column for the magazine Antiques and Collectibles for Pleasure and Profit and contributes to many other publications.
