IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/empeco/v56y2019i2d10.1007_s00181-017-1413-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of color palettes on the prices of paintings

Author

Listed:
  • 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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00181-017-1413-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00181-017-1413-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan Beggs & Kathryn Graddy, 1997. "Declining Values and the Afternoon Effect: Evidence from Art Auctions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(3), pages 544-565, Autumn.
    2. Federico Etro & Elena Stepanova, 2016. "Entry of painters in the Amsterdam market of the Golden Age," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 317-348, May.
    3. Olivier Chanel & Louis-André Gérard-Varet & Victor Ginsburgh, 1996. "The relevance of hedonic price indices," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 20(1), pages 1-24, March.
    4. Christiane Hellmanzik, 2009. "Artistic styles: revisiting the analysis of modern artists’ careers," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 33(3), pages 201-232, August.
    5. David Galenson, 2000. "The Careers of Modern Artists," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 24(2), pages 87-112, May.
    6. Federico Etro & Elena Stepanova, 2015. "The Market for Paintings in Paris between Rococo and Romanticism," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(1), pages 28-50, February.
    7. Etro, Federico & Pagani, Laura, 2012. "The Market for Paintings in Italy During the Seventeenth Century," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(2), pages 423-447, May.
    8. Corinna Czujack, 1997. "Picasso Paintings at Auction, 1963–1994," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 21(3), pages 229-247, September.
    9. Federico Etro & Elena Stepanova, 2017. "Art collections and taste in the Spanish Siglo de Oro," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 41(3), pages 309-335, August.
    10. Richard Agnello & Renée Pierce, 1996. "Financial returns, price determinants, and genre effects in American art investment," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 20(4), pages 359-383, December.
    11. Orley Ashenfelter & Kathryn Graddy, 2003. "Auctions and the Price of Art," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(3), pages 763-787, September.
    12. Douglas Hodgson, 2011. "Age–price profiles for Canadian painters at auction," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 35(4), pages 287-308, November.
    13. Corinna Czujack, 1997. "Picasso paintings at auction, 1963-1994," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/193273, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    14. Antonello E. Scorcu & Roberto Zanola, 2010. "The 'Right' Price for Art Collectibles. A Quantile Hedonic Regression Investigation of Picasso Paintings," Working Paper series 01_10, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    15. Victor Ginsburgh & Pierre-Michel Menger, 1996. "Economics of the arts: selected essays," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/1655, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    16. Helen Higgs & Andrew Worthington, 2005. "Financial Returns and Price Determinants in the Australian Art Market, 1973–2003," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(253), pages 113-123, June.
    17. Federico Etro & Laura Pagani, 2013. "The market for paintings in the Venetian Republic from Renaissance to Rococò," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 37(4), pages 391-415, November.
    18. Douglas James Hodgson, 2011. "Age-Price Profiles for Canadian Painters at Auction," CIRANO Working Papers 2011s-15, CIRANO.
    19. Puccinelli, Nancy M. & Chandrashekaran, Rajesh & Grewal, Dhruv & Suri, Rajneesh, 2013. "Are Men Seduced by Red? The Effect of Red Versus Black Prices on Price Perceptions," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 115-125.
    20. Chanel, O. & Gerard, L.A. & Ginsburgh, V., 1992. "The Relevence of Hedonic Price Indices the Case of Paintings," G.R.E.Q.A.M. 92a19, Universite Aix-Marseille III.
    21. Henrik Hagtvedt & S. Adam Brasel, 2017. "Color Saturation Increases Perceived Product Size," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 44(2), pages 396-413.
    22. Pownall, Rachel A.J. & Graddy, Kathryn, 2016. "Pricing color intensity and lightness in contemporary art auctions," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 412-420.
    23. Pesando, James E, 1993. "Art as an Investment: The Market for Modern Prints," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1075-1089, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    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. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Jaehyuk Choi & Lan Ju & Jian Li & Zhiyong Tu, 2023. "Information extraction and artwork pricing," Papers 2302.08167, arXiv.org.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marinelli, Nicoletta & Palomba, Giulio, 2011. "A model for pricing Italian Contemporary Art paintings at auction," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 212-224, May.
    2. Victor Ginsburgh & Jianping Mei & Michael Moses, 2006. "On the computation of art indices in art," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/7290, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    3. Luc Renneboog & Christophe Spaenjers, 2013. "Buying Beauty: On Prices and Returns in the Art Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(1), pages 36-53, February.
    4. Charlin, Ventura & Cifuentes, Arturo, 2013. "A new financial metric for the art market," MPRA Paper 50186, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Régis Blazy & Marie Blum, 2022. "Horizontal and vertical differentiation in comic art auctions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(3), pages 1382-1415, July.
    6. Federico Etro & Elena Stepanova, 2015. "The Market for Paintings in Paris between Rococo and Romanticism," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(1), pages 28-50, February.
    7. Helen Higgs & John Forster, 2014. "The auction market for artworks and their physical dimensions: Australia—1986 to 2009," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 38(1), pages 85-104, February.
    8. Garay, Urbi, 2021. "Determinants of art prices and performance by movements: Long-run evidence from an emerging market," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 413-426.
    9. Ünsal Özdilek, 2013. "Visual autocorrelation of prices," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 37(2), pages 203-223, May.
    10. Vecco, Marilena & Zanola, Roberto, 2017. "Don’t let the easy be the enemy of the good. Returns from art investments: What is wrong with it?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 120-129.
    11. Finn Førsund & Roberto Zanola, 2006. "DEA meets Picasso: The impact of auction houses on the hammer price," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 149-165, July.
    12. Kim Oosterlinck & Anne-Sophie Radermecker & Yuqing Song, 2025. "The valuation of copies for Chinese artworks," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 49(1), pages 99-140, March.
    13. Federico Etro & Elena Stepanova, 2017. "Art Auctions and Art Investment in the Golden Age of British Painting," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 64(2), pages 191-225, May.
    14. Edwards, Sebastian, 2004. "The economics of Latin American art: creativity patterns and rates of return," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123098, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Belma Öztürkkal & Aslı Togan-Eğrican, 2020. "Art investment: hedging or safe haven through financial crises," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 44(3), pages 481-529, September.
    16. Fedderke, Johannes W. & Chen, Tinghua, 2023. "Generalizing the “Masterpiece Effect” in fine art pricing: Quantile Hedonic regression results for the South African fine art market, 2009–2021," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    17. Petrov, Nikita & Ratnikova, Tatiana, 2017. "The price index for the paintings of Henri Matisse: The sensitivity to the method of construction and connection with stock market and art indices," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 47, pages 49-73.
    18. 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.
    19. Seçkin Aylin & Atukeren Erdal, 2012. "A Heckit Model of Sales Dynamics in Turkish Art Auctions: 2005-2008," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 7(3), pages 1-32, May.
    20. Federico Etro & Elena Stepanova, 2017. "Art collections and taste in the Spanish Siglo de Oro," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 41(3), pages 309-335, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:56:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s00181-017-1413-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.