The growing view of art as an asset has some of the art press groping for ways to measure the return on art. The Art Newspaper ran a recent feature where the editors tried to quantify and compare art gains. Unfortunately, in their zeal to find an independent measure of value, they compared all prices to a benchmark of inflation and concurrent prices of gold. Here’s an example of how they cast the comparisons for artists ranging from Monet to Brueghel to Rodin, Mitchell, Basquiat, Lievens, Rubens, Picasso and Hirst:

New York dealer Richard Feigen staged a coup in 1982 when he bought the classical landscape, The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius Restored, 1814-16, from Christie’s London for £648,000. When it came to auction at Sotheby’s New York in January 2009, it fetched $12.96m, or £8.3m. The original £648,000 would now be worth £1.7m, allowing for inflation. An investment of £648,000 in gold in 1982 would be worth £2m in 2009.Continue Reading