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Can I Use Data to Beat Christie's Auction Estimates?

artnome.com

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Re: Can I Use Data to Beat Christie's Auction Estimates?

#6

Post by ata6187 »

Not sure what you're exactly building here, is it for fun or profit or both?

I heard when Sotheby's bought the Mei Moses Database/Index last year, the valuation they paid for it was in the 7 figures. This type of data analysis is on people's minds more and more and potentially quite lucrative, good luck.

Re: Can I Use Data to Beat Christie's Auction Estimates?

#7

Post by jaclaz »

I wonder what is the point.

It seems to me like a back-justification of something not measurable analitically.

A 5 millions US$ bracket is not in any way an approximation.

IF you had narrowed the interval (and IF the picture is at the auction sold within it), then all your data mingling exercises might have some usefulness, otherwise it is just an arbitrary estimation like the one from Christie's.

So the similarity calculated by an arbitrarily chosen software between (photos of) study and painting of improvisation #8 is 64%.

The similarity between (photos of) study and painting of improvisation #20 is a MUCH lower 57%.

It is clear how this HUGE 7% different can easily bring down the value of the estimation by more than 50% from the improvisation #8 sale price of 23 millions for a 98x70=6,860 sqcm painting, i.e. 3,350 US$/sqcm to a mere 10 millions for the improvisation #20, a 71x99=7,029 sqcm painting, i.e. 1,423 US$/sqcm, give or take a couple of millions.

Re: Can I Use Data to Beat Christie's Auction Estimates?

#8

Post by Artnome »

ata6187 wrote: post #6

Not sure what you're exactly building here, is it for fun or profit or both? I heard when Sotheby's bought the Mei Moses Database/Index last year, the valuation they paid for it was in the 7 figures. This type of data analysis is on people's minds more and more and potentially quite lucrative, good luck.

Thanks for reading my post. I am building a database of complete known works across the most important art and artists of the twentieth century. Currently no such database exists. Hoping to work with folks much sharper than I am to build out meaningful analytics around art and artists using this new data.

Re: Can I Use Data to Beat Christie's Auction Estimates?

#9

Post by Artnome »

jaclaz wrote: post #7

I wonder what is the point. It seems to me like a back-justification of something not measurable analitically. A 5 millions US$ bracket is not in any way an approximation. IF you had narrowed the interval (and IF the picture is at the auction sold within it), then all your data mingling exercises might have some usefulness, otherwise it is just an arbitrary estimation like the one from Christie's. So the similarity c…

Thanks for reading, I hope to improve the analysis over time. I spent the last three years building a unique database that contains the complete paintings of ~40 of the best known artists of the twentieth century. I was motivated by reading about the large percentage of works that are forged or misattributed. I had always just assumed there was a single database listing how many works artists created, average size of the works, changes in materials over time etc. (similar to sports stats). After asking around and learning no such database exists I decided to build one. Getting my blog out there has allowed me to meet with a lot of really sharp folks like yourself who are helping me refine the analysis.

Re: Can I Use Data to Beat Christie's Auction Estimates?

#10

Post by Artnome »

muglug wrote: post #4

Artnet has been doing the same basic analysis (finding comparable artworks and calculating the worth of a piece of art) for over a decade. They offer theirs as an add-on to their price subscription service: https://www.artnet.com/analytics-reports/

Thanks for reading, Artnet is awesome. To my knowledge they do not have a database looking at all known works by artists, they focus on works sold at auction. This makes sense as they cover much larger group of artists and info on complete works is typically not available for the majority of artists.
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