Based on the auction data even beginner can to evaluate the picture approximately. The main thing is to know the general approach and avoid the "children's mistakes" which lead to the strongest deviations from real prices. Why it is unacceptable to use the top auction sales blindly? Why to evaluate your own work, you should not rely on auction prices and the other? Here are just a few nuances that need to be taken into account about auction prices if the product is going to be sold within our country.


• Firstly, you need to throw away about 30% of the published price immediately. Auction prices usually include the purchase commission. This means that the original price was lower by about 15-35%. That is not all. Auctions charge a commission from both the buyer and the seller. And not only the commission, but also other fees. The seller is charged about 10% of the original price, plus about $ 200 for insurance and $ 300 for publication in the catalog. In fact, if the work is sold for $ 23,500 at the auction, then the owner will receive about $16,500 – that is $7,000 less than the price in the top. That is 30% less. The reader of the top, as a rule, forgets to make this notice. It seems to him that if the picture in the top is sold for $ 23 500, then about the same or a little less sum the owner receives. This is a big mistake.

• It is important to pay attention in what year the record was set. Nowadays we began to publish the date of sale even for people who are not signed for paid access to the database. We wrote a warning to avoid misunderstandings. If the record is set in 2008, then this price is already hopelessly far from the current market situation. The peak of the rise in the Russian art market was achieved in 2007-2008, then there was a sharp recession, followed by a slight rise in 2011. Today, those prices in dollar terms can be forgotten: they need to be divided into two, or even more. For example, today the price in dollars of the Aivazovsky's painting, whose size is about the meter, at first-class auctions costs about 50% cheaper in dollars than 8 years ago. Today the prices are set after 2014, after the annexation of Crimea are relevant only.


• As a rule, our top sales includes the prices achieved at first-class foreign auctions. These prices are usually significantly higher than at the auctions in Russia. What is the reason? A more reliable legal regime, confidentiality, an attractive climate for business, a historically developed client base and the ability to work with wealthy audience, all this have a good effect. But if you sell in Russia, then to "Sotbis" prices it is necessary to make a very significant adjustment or even divide the foreign prices for two.



I hope I convinced the readers not to use the prices from the top auction results for other purposes. The objective of these prices mainly advertising: to show what heights they are able or had been able to reach.


But if you need to determine the possible price of your work seriously (not to satisfy your selfishness but for real sale in Russia), then we recommend to use the steps described below. The example is addressed to subscribers of our database, but the general approach is the same for any bases. For instance, you have a painting (not a drawing and no other technique) by Ivanov-Petrov. Then to evaluate the painting by yourself you
should do the next steps:

• Enter the section Artists and prices, add to cart and go to the card of the artist.

• In the block "All works" you need to select the category "Painting". It makes sense to compare the prices of works only within the same category. Painting should be compared only with painting, but not with graphics.

• In the list of lots, it is better to focus on sales of the last two years. It is preferable to select sales only after 2014. It is obvious that after the crisis, dollar prices have dropped significantly.


• Select the pictures of comparable size. You can compare the price of the work of size 60 × 80 and 70 × 60, but not 60 × 80 and 30 × 40.

• Using the available photos the work of the same genre and level of painting should be selected. At least the price of abstraction could not be compared with the prices of figurative painting.


• You are lucky if using the photo you could identify and compare the works created within the same creative period. If this is impossible or the artist's work is "even", then you can focus on the year of creation. The closer, the more accurate.

• The results of first-class foreign auctions ("Sotbis" and "cristis") should be treated with increased confidence, but you should discount their prices taking into account the realities of the Russian market. Я бы советовал уменьшить заморские цены с премиями на 40–50 %. При этом русские аукционы, по моему мнению, дают более релевантные ориентиры, а в результатах AI Аукциона я уверен больше всего.

• I there are a few results, but many pictures are marked "Not sold", then you can use the lower estimate as a benchmark, the minimum estimate assigned to the work by the auction house experts. Just keep in mind that even this minimal score was great for a particular thing.


In the majority of cases, the implementation of these items will allow you to find an acceptable price. However, do not forget about common sense and intuition. If any result seems suspicious to you (too low or too high), then hardly your intuition betrays you. We need to find an explanation of this cost or ignore it. For sure it is not necessary to advertise the results that are pleasant for you but are knocked out of the general variety. It is impossible to deceive the market.