This essay first appeared in the April 2025 issue of Choice (volume 62 | issue 8).
The financial value of art is complicated, and in many ways the scholarship on this topic parallels the complex questions that we can ask about the value of other objects and money itself. In everyday life, money can feel deceptively consistent and stable. However, social scientists studying financial value—economists, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, and other professionals—tend to see value as a cultural process rooted in shared practices.
This essay is about resources on the financial value of art. More accurately, it is about “values” in the plural. A traditional way of thinking about the value of art, based on the inherent quality of artworks, is “connoisseur-ship.” The public intellectual Bernard Berenson typified this approach at the turn of the twentieth century, implying that the best art in the world is priceless while simultaneously facilitating sales. His efforts to find the best of the best resulted in the great American art collections, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery in Washington, DC. An overview of his life was published by essayist Rachel Cohen, Bernard Berenson: A Life in the Picture Trade.
Artworks that are on display in museums are almost never for sale. Because museums have an educational mission, they are sometimes assumed to be operating outside the parameters of the art market. However, as institutions that vouch for the significance and authenticity of what they exhibit, museums increase the financial value of art in a way that can be controversial, even if difficult to quantify. Artworks displayed in museums can later sell for higher prices than those never seen publicly. This creates a complex relationship between collectors and museums, as the former benefit financially if their artworks are put on view. Some of these issues were explored by the Whitney Museum of American Art in the catalog The Price of Everything … Perspectives on the Art Market.
Today, as anthropologists have explained, we understand that financial values are deeply contextual and embedded in relationships, and this applies to the field of art studies. Artworks can be valued in many ways. In-deed, the same piece can be dramatically more or less valuable in different circumstances. This makes discussing the art market and appraising individual artworks challenging. Even within a given context, the value of art is not stable, as will be demonstrated below in numerous ways. This bibliographic essay is thus organized around significant questions about how art is valued.
A hypothetical example can show how value fluctuates. Imagine a newly commissioned bronze statue of a family member. This may cost thousands of dollars, particularly if the artist is well known and in demand. If the family faced hardship, however, and the same sculpture was to be sold at auction, the gavel price may be quite small. After all, few people want to buy and display portraits of other people’s relatives. It might only be sold for the value of scrap metal, and the sculpture may be destined for recycling. To understand how the values of objects change over time, see Michael Thompson’s Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value. This example offers a keyhole view into the complex workings and considerations of the art market, which the rest of this essay will explore.
Travis Nygard is a Professor of Art History at Ripon College and an accredited member of the International Society of Appraisers.
Ursula Dalinghaus is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Ripon College, whose research focuses on the cultural and economic value of money, including cash.
