Major Auction Research Articles

Comprehensive Analysis of the Trade of NFTs at Major Auction Houses: From Hype to Reality

On 11 March 2021, amidst the lingering grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, the art world witnessed an extraordinary event. Christie’s, the renowned auction house, hosted a groundbreaking auction counting just one lot: a Non-Fungible Token (NFT)—a digital asset that had been generating buzz in recent times. The astounding price fetched by the NFT sent shockwaves through the art world. While the 255-year-old auction house was known for selling unique assets, its auctioning of an NFT was surprising as Christie’s online marketplace was not on the blockchain, contrarily to NFT platforms such as Opensea, Nifty Gateway, etc. The resounding success, however, of its historic auction was followed by a surge of NFT off-chain sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips. While extensive research has been done on the trade of NFTs on the blockchain, little research exists on the trade of NFTs at public auction houses. Based on more than two years’ tracking of NFTs auctioned at major auction houses, our research identifies three phases in the development of the trade and provides valuable insights into the unique factors that contributed to the growth of NFTs at public auctions between the springs of 2021 and 2023.

Second‐chance offers and buyer reputation systems: theory and evidence on auctions with default

AbstractWinners in online auctions frequently fail to complete purchases. Major auction platforms therefore allow “second‐chance” offers (the runner‐up bidder pays his own bid price) and let sellers leave negative feedback on buyers who default. We show theoretically that (i) all else equal, the availability of second‐chance offers reduces bids; (ii) sellers have no incentive to exclude bidders, even if they are nearly certain to default; (iii) buyer reputation systems reward bidders known to default with a positive probability. Our experiments show that the economic forces identified in the theoretical model are important enough to have predictive power for bidder behavior.

What is Art?

This paper investigates non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, and examines their place within art historical canon. Crypto-art and crypto-collectibles have flooded digital markets, offering unique art. Recently, Beeple’s Everydays—The First 5000 Days, the first digital artwork fitted with a non-fungible token offered by the major auction house Christie’s, sold for $69,346,250 on March 11, 2021. It is the third most expensive artwork sold by a living artist, following Jeff Koon’s sculpture Rabbit (1986) and David Hockney’s painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) (1972). While Jeff Koons and David Hockney are the artists, whose theoretical perspectives are well known and have a secured place in an art historical canon, Beeple’s work and works of other digital NFT artists have not been fully investigated to be positioned in relation to art history, seemingly existing in a theoretical vacuum. The absence of artistic statements that usually accompany artworks contributes to this effect. Is it possible to think of the 21st century NFT-backed digital artists as the avant-gardes, who, like their 20th -century predecessors, confronted and condemned the art historical tradition? Using the case study of Beeple’s Everydays, this paper proposes an answer to the puzzling question of how a mosaic of everyday sketches produced by “pooping something out in 45 minutes,” using Beeple’s own words, was claimed to be “the next chapter in art history.” Using historical and textual analyses, this essay provides a critical response to the recent digital artworld trends driven by the decentralized networks and currencies existing in fully digital ecosystems.

Shaw and Legacy: Introduction

Shaw and Legacy: Introduction

The Artworks of Boris Grigoriev (1886–1939) at Sotheby’s and Christie’s Auctions in the 1980s–2010s

This article discusses the introduction of artworks by a Russian émigré artist, Boris Grigoriev, to the Western art market during the 1980s–2010s, using the examples of Russian art sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction houses. The history of Grigoriev’s artwork sales at the major auctions, peaks and slumps of interest in them, together with the stylistic preferences of buyers and other factors, are addressed less as market phenomena and more as a result of art historical research, expert appraisal of the artist’s practice, and, at the same time, as a basis for further investigations contributing not only to economic value, but also to a symbolic component.
 Keywords: Boris Grigoriev, Russian art, art market, expert appraisal, auction sales, original painting, forged artworks

Through a Glass, Darkly: Long-Term Antiquities Auction Data in Context

Abstract:The antiquities catalogues of major auction houses comprise an accessible long-term source of information about the auction market in antiquities and the market in antiquities more generally. The information contained in these catalogues has been used to investigate the nature and scale of the market and to assess the impact of legal and normative measures of market control. But, by way of two case studies, referencing Iraqi and Cambodian material sold at the New York branch of Sotheby’s, this article argues that, while auction catalogues do provide an invaluable source of information for investigating the antiquities market, it can be misleading. Changing material or monetary statistics might reflect commercial factors unrelated to market control. For more reliable research, long-term auction data should be contextualized with information available from other sources.

Collections to think with

Abstract Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery has a nationally significant coin collection, thanks mainly to two bequests in the early twentieth century. The donation by R. E. Hart, a local industrialist, was made along with all his accompanying notes and books. This collection offers unique insights into the habits and aims of Hart as a numismatist, his wider network and the intellectual community of collecting. Understanding Hart’s processes of acquisition, and his role as a learned society member and customer of major auction houses supplies the outlines of a shared endeavour that, in the early twentieth century, shaped social and personal, as well as economic and cultural identities. Collections and collecting like Hart’s were also fundamental in creating the resources and structures for numismatic study today, offering a reminder of the importance of preserving and understanding inclusive environments of knowledge curation, as well as context for the collections underpinning much current research.

The price of solar energy: Comparing competitive auctions for utility-scale solar PV in developing countries

This paper examines the viability of low PV prices in developing countries from recent competitive auctions and discusses the sustainability of these low prices for further market expansion. Our analysis of utility-scale PV projects procured through major auctions in developing countries between 2013 and 2016 reveals that low PV prices are viable. PV prices of $0.06–0.08/kWh are consistent with market fundamentals and prices lower than $0.03/kWh are viable under exceptional conditions in some countries. Maintaining low prices while ensuring deployment of quality projects requires a combination of high capacity factors, low equipment prices, low cost of capital, de-risked investment environments, e.g., through the presence of guarantees, and other factors such as particular project developer strategies. Overall, developing countries with abundant local solar resources are well-positioned to drive the global expansion of PV capacity. Well-designed auctions offer a unique opportunity to expand solar PV capacity to many markets in a cost-effective manner.

The Art Index as Art

For artists already participating in the art market, appropriating the tools of finance may help them to gain more control and protection in this financializing field. Art Investment 2014-Art Asset 1 is a tactical intervention by this author that is grounded in institutional critique methods – including Bourdieuian sociological analysis – that uses scraped stock market data-feeds to visualize the performance of companies on the Skate’s Art Stock Index (SASI). The SASI is an art industry index fund that provides investors with access to the art market without buying art. Art indexes such as the SASI reduce the impact of an artist’s work to a data-point averaged alongside the expected quarterly profit of major auction houses. As such, the SASI represents a total financial abstraction. Examination reveals the index’s lack of objectivity and raises doubts about its ability to represent the industry. Art market financialization threatens to shift the field from pre-capitalist logic, which disavows profit-seeking, towards increasingly profit-driven motives, leading to financial abstraction and the transposition of technical obscurity from the field of finance. Art Investment 2014-AA1 makes the SASI into an artwork: its placement in a museum underscores the role of the museum in the market. The ‘art index as art’ exposes and inverts the logic of art investment, while questioning assumptions underpinning the art index: including the notion that value can be financially abstracted from art objects. Despite the discontinuation of the SASI, art market financialization shows no signs of diminishing, and there is still room for creative intervention.

Basquiat Cases: Hamlet, Doctor Faustus, and The Alchemist at the Royal Shakespeare Company

Basquiat Cases: Hamlet, Doctor Faustus, and The Alchemistat the Royal Shakespeare Company Grace Godwin HamletPresented by The Royal Shakespeare Company at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK. 03 12– 08 13, 2016. Directed by Simon Godwin. Designed by Paul Wills. Lighting designed by Paul Anderson. Composed by Sola Akingbola. Fights by Kevin McCurdy. With James Cooney (Rosencrantz), Bethan Cullinane (Guildenstern), Paapa Essiedu (Hamlet), Griffiths (Laertes), Byron Mondahl (Professor of Wittenberg/English Ambassador), Tanya Moodie (Gertrude), Cyril Nri (Polonius), Natalie Simpson (Ophelia), Clarence Smith (Claudius), Ewart James Walters (Ghost/Gravedigger), and others. Doctor FaustusPresented by The Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK. 02 4– 08 4, 2016. Directed by Maria Aberg. Designed by Naomi Dawson. Lighting designed by Lee Curran. Music by Orlando Gough. Fights by Kate Waters. With Will Bliss (Valdes/Good Angel/Scholar), Jade Croot (Helen of Troy), John Cummins (Cornelius/Evil Angel/Friar), Sandy Grierson (Doctor Faustus/Mephistopheles), Nicholas Lumley (Wagner/Friar), Oliver Ryan (Doctor Faustus/Mephistopheles), Timothy Speyer (Pope), Eleanor Wyld (Lucifer/Scholar/Friar), and others. The AlchemistPresented by The Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK. 05 26– 08 6, 2016. Directed by Polly Findlay. Designed by Helen Goddard. Lighting designed by Charles Balfour. Composed by Corin Buceridge. Fights by Kate Waters. With John Cummins (Ananias), Richard Leeming (Abel Drugger), Mark Lockyer (Subtle), Tom McCall (Kastril), Joshua McCord (Dapper), Siobhan McSweeney (Doll Common), Ken Nwosu (Face), Ian Redford (Sir Epicure Mammon), Tim Samuels (Sir Pertinax Surly), Timothy Speyer (Tribulation Wholesome), and others. [End Page 675] The summer saw a series of major auctions, including one in New York that shattered the record price for a canvas. Fixated on the eye-popping bottom lines, publicity pieces hyping the sales barely registered that 2016 was also a major Basquiat anniversary, marking thirty-five years since he achieved gallery representation and merited the Artforumprofile that brought his work to the attention of connoisseurs with little access to the SAMO©—a portmanteau/epocope for “same old shit”—tagged graffiti with which the artist made his name. In contrast, anniversaries were very much in the news in Stratford-upon-Avon where, for the quadricentennial of Shakespeare’s death, more of the “SAMO” simply would not do. The most high-profile event was Shakespeare Live!, a starry evening with a title that could be read as a descriptor of the April 23 BBC broadcast, or a hortatory appeal for a resurrection at Holy Trinity Church. Among the scenes, songs, and dances was a cheeky sketch wherein a gloom of Hamlets debated the ictics of “To be or not to be.” Benedict Cumberbatch, David Tennant, Rory Kinnear, and Sir Ian McKellen represented experienced Danes; Dames Harriet Walter and Judi Dench teased what might have been; Tim Minchin provided comic relief; and HRH Prince Charles himself tottered on stage to offer royal resolution. The company of royals and Shakespeareans ostensibly assembled to tutor Paapa Esseidu, the first black RSC Hamlet, in a production that overtly referenced the year’s other anniversary artist and his assertion that “the black person is the protagonist in most of my paintings” (qtd. in McGuigan 32). Though the influence was less obvious, traces of Jean-Michel Basquiat also appeared in Maria Aberg’s breath-taking Faustusand Polly Findlay’s vigorous Alchemist, rendering all three plays and their protagonists a trio of unlikely Basquiat Cases. Though born in New York to a Haitian father and mother of Puerto Rican background, Basquiat was adamant that his “roots come from Africa” (qtd. in Fretz 151), and summer 2016 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the artist’s dealer-arranged visit to that continent. RSC director Simon Godwin acknowledged his own star’s Ghanaian heritage by placing Elsinore in a West African Denmark, all hazy orange skies, overworked ceiling fans, and fervently chirping insects. Bernardo and “Francisca” exchanged the text’s “bitter cold” (1.1.6) for the djembe/dunun drums that signaled the Ghost, the large machine gun of the soldier delivering letters to Horatio lent fearsome plausibility to pirates lurking off Cape Verde rather than in the North Sea, and the wooden masks and syncretic...

New Letters for a Biography of Abraham Ortelius

In 2012, the renowned autograph and manuscript auction house J. A. Stargardt, compiled Catalogue 698 for a major auction of autographed documents for sale in Berlin on 5 and 6 June.1 One of the hig...

The Welfare Effects of Trade in Phytomedicines: A Multi-Disciplinary Analysis of Turmeric Production

Summary International trade in medicinal herbal products is growing, while value chains are becoming more complex and governed by a range of public and private standards. There is a debate over the extent to which phytomedicine production can be beneficial for farmers in low- and middle-income countries. More generally, there are varied views about the extent to which small farmers are disadvantaged by stringent public health and private consumer standards in northern markets for agricultural products. This paper proves a comparative analysis of value chains, using case studies of turmeric production in India. It marries a qualitative investigation of turmeric producing sites in India with an investigation into the chemical quality of various turmeric products. The aim of the paper is to understand the way that varied structure and governance of value chains changes the benefits to both producer and consumer. When production is for the organic northern market, we found evidence of a “captive” value chain, where the lead firm requires strict adherence to conditions of production and processing. Prices for farmers were relatively stable, at a reasonably high level. In contrast, where farmers were producing for local markets, including the major auction at Erode, prices were volatile and farmers bore considerable risk. We found that competition and volatility in the market-based chain can lead to turmeric adulteration and contamination, both intentional and unintentional. Our case study suggests that many small turmeric farmers would find it difficult to meet both public and private health standards, in contrast to some academic literature that argues that public health standards do not discriminate against small farmers. More than this, our study adds to the discussion of the impact of standards, suggesting clear consumer benefits in northern markets. However, there are also indications that only larger and more dynamic farmers can participate in the lucrative phytomedicine trade. As such, our study tentatively supports previous literature suggesting that the application of standards in northern markets lead to increasing farmer differentiation.

Investigating Art Market Efficiency

This paper adds to the stream of research dealing with the art work by investigating the returns obtained by auction houses. We are interested in testing the market efficiency of the most influential auction house as a signal for art market robustness. the interest of this paper is focuses on how investors use information regarding the activitry of four major auction houses - Sotheby's, Turners Auctions Ltd, Mallett PLC and Mowbray Collectables - and how this information is reflected in the stock price. After performing several test of market efficiency (Lo and MacKinlay test, Joint Wright test, Automatic Variance Ratio test), the results are discussed and interpreted. While some stocks exhibit market efficiency, other present a slow assimilation of information in the stock price and hence past information can be used to make predictions

A Comprehensive Analysis of Nondelivery Fraud at a Major Online Auction Site

Fraud at auction sites is a well-known problem, and yet there are few empirical studies about it. This work helps to fill this gap through the analysis of a one-year long data collection from a major online auction site. The present study tested the effect of reputation, product price, and buyer experience on the outcome of nondelivery fraud attempts. The magnitude and the impact of this kind of fraudulent behavior were also evaluated through various measures, such as fraud rate, number of affected buyers, buyer financial losses, and fraudsters' revenue.

The Portuguese Contemporary Art Auction Market Between 2008 and 2011

The purpose of this study is to understand how the Portuguese auction market for contemporary art reacted to the global crisis following the collapse of Leh man Brothers investment bank in September 2008. By studying the records fro m some major auction houses in the country it is possible to understand the movement o f this market between 2008 and 2011, and to compare it with the international auction market. Th is study shows that the Portuguese auction market for contemporary art fo llo wed a different path fro m the international market, facing a longer period of recovering.

The Impact of Reservation Prices on the Perceived Bias of Expert Appraisals of Fine Art

We examine whether expert appraisals provided to bidders before major art auctions are unbiased indicators of value. Despite a strong grounding in theory, this aspect of optimal auction design has been frequently challenged in previous empirical research, particularly in the market for fine art. We adopt a valuation benchmark that incorporates sellers’ reserve prices as well as high bids, and recognize censoring of works that fail to make reserve. Although the auction houses never divulge reserve prices, we exploit the fact that they can be observed indirectly via their impact on buy-in rates. Using the set of French Impressionist paintings brought to auction from 1985 to 2001, we estimate the distribution of reserve prices, establish their link to a proper valuation benchmark, and isolate the selection bias due to bought-in works on the perceived market value of fine art works. After controlling for the impact of reservation prices, and considering all works brought to auction, we find no evidence of bias in the experts’ pre-sale estimates.

Streamlining Knowledge Map Construction for an Online Auction House Using Automatic Term Filtering

Organizations are building automated technical support software that can help both consumers and field support engineers with problem resolution. The goal of the automated technical support system is reducing operational cost and increasing customer satisfaction. This paper examines the set of challenges that knowledge engineers face in building automated technical support software. This paper uses a technical services engagement with a major online auction house with tens of millions of users to highlight the challenges and present an automated knowledge map generation technique. The objective of this automated technique was to improve the quality of expressions extracted from documents, which would reduce the burden on knowledge engineers to construct knowledge maps. The technique was run on large corpora of documents in the online auction house and found a significant increase in the quality of the knowledge map. Further experimentation showed that the technique works well for other domains as well.

The Fine Art of Investing Determining Risk and Return of an Investment in Art

If one should buy something only because one loves it for its beauty or some other aspect of aesthetic or personal appeal, one can never really lose. Individuals who collect art and who share the growing interest in art as an investment question whether art is a good investment particularly when art is illiquid and the ability to convert an art investment into cash expeditiously is limited. Anything that can be said about art as an investment obviously applies only to genuine art and not fakes or forgeries. Investors need to be able to find out what is authentic and what is not. Art prices may be quite unpredictable, and investment horizons may run for decades and art often ends up as part of an estate. Past performance in art investing is no indicator of future results. At the same time statistics suggest that discerning investors might at least want to give some thought to adding art to their portfolios. The next issue is whether art serves any function in a portfolio. Sales at the major auction houses are setting record prices for art against the backdrop of major recession. Studies indicate that art values tend to hold up well during periods of economic difficulty and that art indices outperform major stock indices during times of war. Art could therefore be a balancing or stabilizing asset. This study considers whether investing in a fine art at the correct price could diversify a portfolio risk and stabilize the volatility of one's portfolio and position one's art collection for upside appreciation. . Since investment in art is modeled with due regard to the peculiarities of artistic work and value created activities, it follows that the construction of earnings functions and models of career choice in this area will also need to account for the risk and return function. A successful entrepreneur sees business where others do not. The blessing of the capitalist system is that it rewards those that come with good new ideas and bring them to business.

Recommending trusted online auction sellers using social network analysis

The reputation system currently used by major auction sites to recommend sellers is overly simple and fails to take into account the collusive attempts by some sellers to fraudulently increase their own ratings. This paper presents a recommendation system that uses trading relationships to calculate level of recommendation for trusted online auction sellers. We demonstrate that network structures formed by transactional histories can be used to expose such underlying opportunistic collusive seller behaviors. Taking a structural perspective by focusing on the relationships between traders rather than their attribute values, we use k-core and center weights algorithms, two social network indicators, to create a collaborative-based recommendation system that could suggest risks of collusion associated with an account. We tested this system against real world ''blacklist'' data published regularly in a leading auction site and found it able to screen out 76% of the blacklisted accounts. This system can provide warning several months ahead of officially released blacklists to help guard against possible seller collusion and can be incorporated into current reputation systems used to recommend trusted online auction sellers.

Beethoven in the Auction Market: A Twenty-Year Review

Beethoven in the Auction Market: A Twenty-Year Review Patricia Stroh In memory of Ira F. Brilliant (1922–2006) In November 1827, Beethoven's estate containing music autographs, books, furniture, and other personal items sold at auction on behalf of the beneficiary, his nephew Karl. The estate inventory of 252 lots listed seventy sketches and "notebooks" and about 120 other music autographs, none appraised at more than ten florins. The following April, The Harmonicon printed a report on the results of the estate auction with comments on the "uncommon interest" on the part of buyers, some of whom paid "astonishing" prices. However, the lots that excited greatest demand might surprise today's auctioneers. For example, Beethoven's autograph score for the Fifth Symphony sold for only one florin more than its appraised value of five florins. His original score for the Septet, op. 20, however—a work so astoundingly popular during his lifetime that an exasperated Beethoven eventually proclaimed that "I wish it were burned"1 —sold for eighteen florins, or six times its appraisal value. Tobias Haslinger bought the notebooks containing Beethoven's counterpoint studies, appraised at ten florins, for seventy-four florins, by far the highest price paid for any other autograph.2 Thus began an active and sometimes erratic trade in Beethoven manuscripts and other treasures that, in spite of dwindling supplies, continues today. The purpose of this article is to review auction sales of biographical and musical manuscripts, first and early editions, and other Beethoven-related documents and artifacts over a twenty year period (1985–2005). An introductory summary highlights changes in values, repeated sales of the same documents, and discoveries of manuscripts thought to be long missing. Although the major auction houses (Christie's, Sotheby's, and J. A. Stargardt) are the primary vendors of Beethoven rarities, several of the smaller venues are also represented. The appended index of auction sales supplements the list published as "A Ten-Year Review of the [End Page 533] Beethoven Auction Market (1985–1995)" in The Beethoven Journal (vol. 11, no. 1 [Spring 1996]: 26-31). The intention is for libraries and dealers to use these lists to help them assess the rarity and value of their Beethoven collections. Because many manuscripts are in private hands and thus still eligible for future auction sales, these lists do not identify the current location of the materials. When possible, this information is recorded in the Beethoven Auction Database recently mounted on the Web site of the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies ( http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/beethoven [accessed 22 November 2006]). This searchable database is to be updated biannually to keep track of recent sales and identify locations when known. Supply and Demand Throughout the nineteenth century, most Beethoven manuscripts were the property of private collectors who exchanged them through dealers rather than auction. By midcentury some of the major European libraries and archives began building Beethoven collections through donations and purchases. The Royal Library at Berlin took the first step in 1846 by acquiring the collection of Beethoven's notorious secretary, Anton Schindler, who claimed many Beethoven documents prior to the estate sale, including the conversation books. Many of the sketchbooks purchased by Domenico Artaria and other dealers who were present at the estate auction eventually ended up in the Berlin library, mostly through acquisition from private collectors such as Ludwig Landsberg (acquired 1861), Friedrich August Grasnick (1879), and Ernst von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1908). A large collection of letters accumulated by H. C. Bodmer are now in the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn. The Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna became a repository of several major music autographs, some gifts of prominent members such as Johannes Brahms. Other manuscripts are scattered throughout the western world, with significant collections in the national libraries of Great Britain and France, and the Library of Congress in the United States. Still, a large number of Beethoven treasures remain in private hands. The number is difficult to estimate. According to Sieghard Brandenburg, editor of Beethoven...