Evening sales during London's early summer art season brought an average compound annual return of 8% to sellers, according to the Mei Moses Art Index.
 Monet's Le Palais Contarini, a magnificent view of Venice, was the undoubted highlight of June's impressionist and modern art sale, selling for $30.8m |
Based on the 50 lots with prior auction purchase price data that were sold during the impressionist and modern art evening sales at Sotheby's and Christie's in June, the results show the kind of gains that can be made at the top end of the art market.
The average return is higher than the 7.3% that would have been achieved if the same amount of money had been invested in the S&P 500 Total Return index over an identical period.
However, day sales - which tend to feature works of a lesser value - saw more lacklustre results, with an average return of 2.5% pa.
When combined, the two sets of sales achieved 3.9% annual returns, which is 50% lower than the historical values for impressionist and modern art.
The figures reinforce the views on investment of The Fine Art Fund Group's CEO and founder, Philipp Hoffman, in the UAE's National newspaper.
"There are two very different art markets," he said.
"There's the rare end, where Christie's and Sotheby's are selling works of art at around half a million dollars and upwards, and there's the not-so-rare end that people aren't so interested in. You really need to focus at the top end of the art market."
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