Artmetria / Market
The Old Masters market — a structured read
Old Masters painting combines historical expertise, material fact, provenance, and highly heterogeneous secondary venues. Serious analysis starts with transparent sources.
The takeaway
“Global” aggregates often hide quality and channel gaps. One school label can cover works whose prices are not comparable without strict methodological framing.
What Artmetria offers
The Artmetria Index and related datasets aim for comparability and traceability: what is included, what is excluded, and with what confidence.
Segment before you synthesise
Schools, centuries, sizes, condition: segmentation is not an academic detail — it is the condition for an interpretable average. Without it, aggregate curves can mix the incomparable.
The role of expertise
Attribution, school, circle: Old Masters depend heavily on literature and specialist opinion. Digital tools speed research; they do not replace the chain of evidence.
Secondary markets and heterogeneous lots
Specialist and regional sales play a real role in liquidity for some segments. Interpreting them requires knowing the houses, sale conditions, and typical catalogue quality.
The perimeter Artmetria structures
as of 2026-06-01These figures describe the scope of what we index and cross-reference — not a forecast. They give context for reading any single artist or work.
- Reference artworks structured
- 320,000+
- Reference artists (ULAN-linked)
- 3,400+
- Museum open-access sources
- 6
- Auction lots observed
- 1,750,000+
- Auction houses observed
- 624