• Feb 17, 2011
    6:05 PM

    How High Can the Art Market Go?

    Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images
    “Self-Portrait” by Andy Warhol at a Christie’s New York preview. It sold in London on Feb. 16 for 10.8 million British pounds (US$17.4 milion), double the presale high estimate.

    The art industry, one of the glitzier pieces of the global economy, seems to have shrugged off the 2009 recession with nonchalance. In 2010, Christie’s had the best year in its 245-year history. The auction house attributes its success to a buoyant art market peppered with more auctions, new customers, private sales and growth in online auctioneering.

    But there is more to the picture. Emilie Faure of the Farjam Collection in Dubai says that in the past decade, as individuals’ investment portfolios have grown more complicated and diverse, art has emerged as an appealing option.

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