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When to start investing in art
Posted by John Stocks on 05/06/2017
When do you start investing in art and will the market always go up? Yes if you buy the best then your investment will always be secure.
When do you start investing in art and will the market always go up? Yes if you buy the best then your investment will always be secure.
Here is one of our sellers tales
Marc Chagall and the Bible Lithographs.
Many years ago in the late 1970’s when I was an extremely green novice in the art world, I was asked by a friend if I would be interested in acquiring a complete set of Marc Chagall’s Bible lithographs. This entailed travelling to Switzerland to meet a Lawyer who would show us the prints in a bank vault. This seemed a lot of fun and the trip was arranged. The owner was a famous singer (still alive) who was considering selling.
I arrived at the Lawyers office and were shown a magnificent bound set of the complete works. How much I enquired? (thinking a few hundred pounds...) Twenty thousand pounds came the reply. Ah, I said. I will need to think about this over lunch.
I suddenly realised that in the art world, how very easy it is to step out of your league. I declined the kind offer and came home much wiser and slightly poorer.
A few weeks ago out of the blue I was offered some individual litho’s from the set published in the 1950’s. I had never bought or been offered any in the intervening 40 years, and thought just how much had changed since that day in Switzerland all those years ago.
Just recently a complete set fetched £60,000-00 so you would of made a profit
FOLLOW
(FRENCH, RUSSIAN, 1887 - 1985)
Dessins Pour La Bible (Cramer Books 42; Mourlot 230-254)
1960
PRICE SOLD
$ 90,990 USD
€ 81,016 EUR
£ 60,000 GBP
LOT #32
SEPTEMBER 29, 2015
LOT DETAILS
Materials:
rare complete set, of 25 lithographs printed in colors
Measurements:
20.47 in. (52.00 cm.) (height) by 29.92 in. (76.00 cm.) (width)
Size Notes:
double sheet; sheets: approx. 52.5 x 38 cm
Edition:
21 of 50
Description:
published by Verve, Paris
Markings:
each signed in pencil, numbered 21/50
John Stocks, 20th Century Gallery @ www.amfineart.co.uk
Photo caption: Marc Chagall, Illustrations for the Bible: Moses Receiving the Tablets Verve 1956 series Lithograph