Art Auctions turning to Old Masters.

Saint Mark

Art Auctions turning to Old Masters.
(Source Forbes)
That means antiquities, silver, and particularly Old Masters. “You’ll see this continuing through 2009,” says Beverly Schreiber Jacoby, the president of BSJ Fine Art, a New York consultancy. “With Old Masters you have the rarity factor–no one is making any more of them. The contemporary market has been fueled by supply, hype, and marketing. You have the faux rarity of Damien Hirst saying he’s not making any more butterfly paintings.”
“People who are losing value with their contemporary collections are turning to Old Masters,” says Konrad Bernheimer of P&D Colnaghi in London, one of the world’s leading dealers in Old Master paintings and drawings. “They don’t lose their value.” (It’s worth noting that Jeff Koons collects Old Masters.)
In December, Giambattista Tiepolo’s recently discovered Portrait of a Lady as Flora sold for $4.2 million at Christie’s London–about three times its estimate of $1.3 to $1.5 million–and Sotheby’s two top Old Master lots went for $4.5 and $5.4 million. A month later Sotheby’s sold J.M.W. Turner’s Temple of Jupiter Panellenius Restored for $13 million. At TEFAF Maastricht (March 13–22), Bernheimer will show a rare Frans Hals Evangelist painting of Saint Mark (circa 1620), from the collection of Catherine the Great. The last Evangelist picture sold for $4 million in 1997. Bernheimer’s asking price is more than £5.5 million ($8.1 million at press time).

http://www.forbes.com/forbes-life-magazine/2009/0316/024_at_auction.html?partner=yahootix