常見問題
Before buying
Statistically speaking, in an average year, over 10,000 Old Master paintings priced between $10,000 – 20,000,000 are offered at public auction worldwide – this is taking into account smaller regional auction houses such as Drouot, Lempertz, Artcurial, Tajan, Dorotheum, Koller, Bonhams as well as Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Some works are unattributed or by minor painters, but reliably there are paintings and drawings by the so-called top tier Old Master painters (e.g. Titian, Rubens, Pontormo, Rembrandt, Canaletto, Turner and Delacroix, to name but a few) available. In 2019, paintings by Cimabue and Caravaggio surfaced out of the blue in France.
Meanwhile, a large volume of works are sold privately through Old Master galleries. The sales info is not made public but you can get an idea of the market by attending an art fair like TEFAF Maastricht or visiting the gallery and making personalised enquiries.
Perhaps the real issue is a matter of money. At the top end, old master paintings may actually be more valuable than any work by a contemporary or modern artist. The record price for a work of art at auction is, after all, for an Old Master.
We source globally from private collections, colleagues in the art world and directly at auction. Almost all the works we source are in free circulation, which means that regardless of where you are, we will be able to ship the artwork to you without the uncertainty or extra time commitment for obtaining export papers.
Money matters
An Old Master can be a great work of art and still not have a firm attribution. Example of an undisputed masterpiece include the Portrait of Luca Pacioli in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, which is sometimes attributed to Jacopo de’ Barberi.
It is not uncommon that some 14th – 17th century artists are referred to as “the Master of …” A familiar example is Robert Campin of Tournai, one of the earliest practitioners of painting in oil, who was known as the ‘Master of Flémalle’ before it became the consensus that Campin was his real identity.
Broadly speaking, however, the fame of the artist will affect the value of the work. Let’s take the example of the painters associated with the Barbizon School. A landscape painting by Corot is most likely more valuable than a similar landscape by Charles François Daubigny or Narcisse-Virgile Diaz de La Peña. Innovation and originality are also important drivers of value, Lucas Cranach the Elder is more highly prized than his son and ditto Pieter Breugel.