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The impact of color palettes on the prices of paintings

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  • Elena Stepanova

    (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies)

Abstract

We emphasize that color composition is an important characteristic of a painting. It impacts the auction price of a painting, but it has never been considered in previous studies on art markets. By using Picasso’s paintings and paintings of Color Field Abstract Expressionists sold in Chrisite’s and Sotheby’s auctions in New York between 1998 and 2016, we demonstrate the method to analyze color compositions: How to extract color palettes from a painting image and how to measure color characteristics. We propose two measures: (1) the surface occupied by specific colors, (2) color diversity of a painting composition. Controlling for all conventional painting and sale characteristics, our empirical results find significant evidence of contrastive paintings, i.e., paintings with high diversity of colors, carrying a premium than equivalent artworks which are performed in monochromatic style. In the case of Picasso’s paintings, our econometric analysis shows that some colors are associated with high prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Elena Stepanova, 2019. "The impact of color palettes on the prices of paintings," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 755-773, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:56:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s00181-017-1413-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s00181-017-1413-4
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    Cited by:

    1. Lan Ju & Zhiyong Tu & Changyong Xue, 2020. "Pricing the Information Quantity in Artworks," Papers 2011.09129, arXiv.org.
    2. Edward Oczkowski, 2021. "The catalogue raisonné and art auction prices: the case of Berthe Morisot," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 1669-1687, September.
    3. Kangying Li & Jiayun Wang & Biligsaikhan Batjargal & Akira Maeda, 2022. "Intuitively Searching for the Rare Colors from Digital Artwork Collections by Text Description: A Case Demonstration of Japanese Ukiyo-e Print Retrieval," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-21, July.
    4. Maksim Borisov & Valeria Kolycheva & Alexander Semenov & Dmitry Grigoriev, 2022. "The influence of color on prices of abstract paintings," Papers 2206.04013, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    5. Garay, Urbi & Pérez, Eduardo & Pulga, Fredy, 2022. "Color intensity variations and art prices: An examination of Latin American art," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 158-176.
    6. Jaehyuk Choi & Lan Ju & Jian Li & Zhiyong Tu, 2023. "Information extraction and artwork pricing," Papers 2302.08167, arXiv.org.
    7. Shailendra Gurjar & Usha Ananthakumar, 2023. "The economics of art: price determinants and returns on investment in Indian paintings," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 50(6), pages 839-859, January.

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