Dmitry Rybolovlev thought he’d been ripped off when he paid the Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier $127.5 million for Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi in 2013, once he learned Bouvier had paid between $75 and $80 million for it. But after Salvator Mundi’s sale in November at Christie’s for $450.3 million, it was hard to argue he’d overpaid. Google searches for “investing in art” hit a 12-month peak just after the sale, suggesting that a new wave of investors may be circling the art market, which is already stacked with consultants, data providers, wealth managers, and lawyers who advise clients on how to approach fine art as an asset class.
Talk of art as an asset class is not quite new. One early art investor was the British Rail Pension Fund, which decided to invest approximately $70 million (about 3 percent of its holding) into fine art and collectibles between 1974 and 1981, in an attempt to diversify its portfolio and hedge against inflation. Due to careful buying and smart timing in its purchases and sales, it generated solid returns. But today’s casual art buyers may not fully appreciate the profound differences in how the art market functions compared with the market for stocks and bonds. Here’s a look at how those differences affect the risks and returns of being an art investor. Read more