Kelly Devine Thomas

What makes one artwork more expensive than a comparable one by the same artist? Provenance, condition, and quality—along with nudity and even the kind of fruit depicted.

It doesn’t always take much insight to figure out why one artwork brings a higher price at auction than another. Everything else being equal, experts say, collectors will spend more for a portrait of an attractive young woman than a portrait of a man or a woman of a certain age. Horizontal canvases appeal to buyers more than vertical ones. Landscapes with water sell better than those without. Nudity beats modesty. And bright colors trump paler ones. New York dealer David Nash offers another observation: “Paintings with cows don’t sell.”

To understand why one artwork sells at auction for more than a similar one, ARTnews examined salesroom prices for artists ranging from Cezanne to Warhol. Experts were asked to explain the data, which revealed a somewhat surprising continuity. “The market has its own logic,” says New York dealer Franck Giraud, former director of 19th-and 20th-century art at Christie’s. “If you want logic, you will find logic.”

Works from the same period and of the same size and style do tend to fetch very similar prices. The most expensive works––the ones that make records and headlines––are those for which no, or few, comparable works have appeared on the market in recent years, or perhaps ever. When two works sell for divergent prices, the reason typically is rooted in quality, size, period, condition, provenance, or the timing of their appearance on the market. Continue reading my price analysis of works by Basquiat, Cezanne, Degas, de Kooning, Giacometti, and Picasso . . .