It has never been easier to find out what an Old Master painting previously fetched at auction. This has reduced the information advantage once enjoyed by the trade, but it has not made paintings any easier to value. With Old Masters in particular, a public auction result can become a stubborn price anchor, even when the attribution, condition, provenance or art-historical status of the work has since changed substantially.
In October 2021, a small panel depicting The Adoration of the Kings appeared at Christie’s Amsterdam. It was catalogued as Circle of Rembrandt, estimated at €10,000–15,000 and sold for €860,000 including fees.
Two years later, the same panel appeared at Sotheby’s in London. This time it was no longer catalogued as Circle of Rembrandt, but as Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606–1669). The estimate had risen to approximately €12–17.5 million ($12.5–18.8 million). On 6 December 2023, the painting sold for approximately €12.8 million ($13.8 million), including buyer’s premium.[1]
Anyone simply comparing the two results sees a rise from €860,000 to almost €13 million. But in reality, they are comparing two different market propositions. The panel was the same. The name above it was not. With Old Masters, that can make almost all the difference.
‘But it only sold for €80,000’
A painting is offered for sale, someone looks it up on their phone and within minutes the previous auction price is on the table. That is useful information. The problem begins when the assessment ends there. What, exactly, was being sold at the time?
Was the attribution the same? Had the painting already been cleaned? Was its provenance fully known? Had it been published? How was it positioned within the artist’s oeuvre? Was there overpaint or discoloured varnish? And had the painting even been examined by the right people? With Old Masters, factors such as these can determine the price.
A database will faithfully record that a painting sold for €60,000 in 2008. Far less obvious is the fact that it may then have been sold as studio of, subsequently restored and technically examined, and reassessed following new art-historical research.
The previous price becomes part of the painting
This is one of the most important consequences of digitisation. A public auction result now travels with a painting. Just as we look at who owned a work in 1920 or which dealer handled it in 1960, we now almost automatically check what it fetched in 2005, 2012 or 2018. Its price history begins to resemble a second provenance.
But a sale price is not the same thing as provenance. It tells us what a group of bidders, under particular circumstances, was prepared to pay at a particular moment. Yet an earlier price can continue to exert influence. A previous auction result may affect both subsequent valuations and bidding behaviour.[2] With Old Masters, this mechanism is particularly relevant. Between two sales, the art-historical understanding of a painting can change substantially, while the market continues to remember the old figure.
What happens between two sales
Anthony van Dyck’s Portrait of a Carmelite Monk illustrates the point well. In July 2011, it was offered at Sotheby’s London as an early work by Van Dyck, painted during the period in which he was working in Rubens’s orbit. The estimate was approximately €670,000–890,000 ($970,000–1.29 million). The painting sold for around €800,000 ($1.15 million), including premium.
Eleven years later, it appeared again, this time at Christie’s. In the intervening period, the painting had not remained a little-known discovery. It had been shown at the Frick Collection in Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture and had also hung at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Its position within Van Dyck’s early oeuvre had become better established.
In 2022, it sold for approximately €4 million ($4.05 million).[3] Anyone looking only at the two prices might conclude that the painting became five times more valuable in eleven years. But that is not the whole story. Between those two sales, the work was examined, researched, compared and exhibited. A stronger attribution, more convincing provenance, technical examination, restoration or inclusion in a significant exhibition can materially alter a painting’s position in the market.
The most persistent word: ‘unsold’
The problem becomes even more complicated when what follows a painting is not a price, but a single word: unsold. In the past, an unsuccessful auction appearance would eventually disappear into old catalogues and the memories of those who had followed the sale. Today, such a result can remain searchable for years. It can begin to haunt a painting.
A new estimate is compared with the old one. Buyers ask why the work failed to sell the last time. If the same painting appears at auction repeatedly without finding a buyer, its market history can eventually become almost more important than the painting itself.
We mostly see what is public
The sheer volume of auction results available online can easily create the impression that we are now able to see almost the entire art market. We cannot. What we see most clearly is the public auction market. Private transactions by dealers and private sales conducted by auction houses remain far less visible. According to the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2026, global dealer sales in 2025 were estimated at $34.8 billion, compared with $20.7 billion in public auction sales.[4]
For Old Masters, this distinction is particularly relevant. Important paintings can move through the private market for decades without a final transaction price ever becoming public. They may pass from one collection to another, be acquired privately by a museum, or be placed by a dealer without the wider market ever knowing the precise figure. The public auction database therefore does not necessarily contain the complete picture of the market. It contains the part of the market that is easiest to see.
The visible margin
The same issue arises when a dealer offers a painting that was sold at auction only a few years earlier. Suppose it fetched €100,000 in 2022. Three years later, a dealer is asking €225,000. But the €125,000 difference is not necessarily the dealer’s margin.
The asking price is not necessarily the final selling price. In between may lie restoration, transport, insurance, research, photography, framing, finance costs, art-fair expenses and years of holding stock. With Old Masters, there is another factor as well: knowledge can genuinely add value.
Who recognises that an old attribution is unconvincing? Who reconstructs the provenance? Who has the painting cleaned, technically examined and shown to the right specialist? A single historic auction price tells us no more about the dealer’s actual profit than it does about the full history of the painting.
More information, but not necessarily more certainty
The information asymmetry between dealer and buyer has become smaller. But there is a curious side effect. Precisely because the number is so easy to find, it can acquire more authority than information that is much harder to assess. The price appears immediately on the screen.
The condition does not. Nor does the quality, or the reason for a changed attribution. This creates a paradox in the Old Masters market. We have access to more price information than ever before, but that has not reduced the need for connoisseurship. The easier it becomes to place two results side by side, the more important it becomes to ask whether the paintings — or even the same painting at two different moments — are genuinely comparable. The value of a painting is never fixed.
Do you have a particular interest in this artist or in this subject?
Do you follow this artist, or have you come across a work you would like to know more about? We regularly research works appearing on the market and are always happy to exchange views on quality, provenance, art-historical context and previous auction results. You can contact us directly via info@antonello.art.
Notes and sources
[1] Sotheby’s, Old Master & 19th Century Paintings Evening Auction, London, 6 December 2023, lot 11, Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, The Adoration of the Kings. The work had previously been sold at Christie’s Amsterdam in October 2021 as Circle of Rembrandt for €860,000 including fees.
[2] Alan Beggs and Kathryn Graddy, “Anchoring Effects: Evidence from Art Auctions”, American Economic Review, 99, no. 3, 2009, p. 1027–1039.
[3] Sotheby’s, Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale, London, 6 July 2011, lot 21, Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of a Carmelite Monk, Head and Shoulders; Christie’s, Old Masters Evening Sale, London, 7 July 2022, lot 10.
[4] Clare McAndrew, The Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2026, Arts Economics, Art Basel and UBS, 2026.