Abstract

The growth of the art market and its infrastructure in the last ten years is fueling an increasing interest in art as an asset class. This paper tries to analyze how investors are treating art as an asset class and how art compares to traditional assets such as equities and bonds. More specifically, the research focuses on the analysis of the art market from a financial point of view, in order to investigate the characteristics and motivations of the speculative demand and the role played by art advisors. A special attention will be paid to art funds with the aim of presenting the specificities of these alternative investment vehicles.