. Those living artists can earn a five per cent royalty from the transactions but only if the artwork has been sold twice before.
“A lot of my clients would normally be spending six to eight weeks in Europe,” Hulme said. “They can’t go and so there are now more buyers out there than sellers.”Scrutiny of the figures reveals that in 2020 fewer artworks were sold, and limited stock generated higher prices per artwork. But these high prices aren’t just reserved for art.The company has sold more than $7 million worth of jewellery in the past 12 months, double what it had budgeted for.
Bonhams Australia director Merryn Schriever said there’s a lot of “discretionary money” available to certain people and auction houses are working harder to reach them. She has doubled her photography budget and boosted spending on video, while the company saves money by printing fewer catalogues.“I don’t think it’s business as usual,” she said. “All the old barriers have vanished, such as buyers [no longer] seeing the works.
So much easier to launder money this way.