The Value Added by Arts Experts: The Case of Klaus Ertz and Pieter Brueghel the Younger

30 Pages Posted: 6 Feb 2020

See all articles by Victor Ginsburgh

Victor Ginsburgh

Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) - European Center for Advanced Research in Economics and Statistics (ECARES)

Anne-Sophie Radermecker

Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

Denni Tommasi

Monash University

Date Written: November 1, 2017

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of an art expert's opinion on the market price for Old Master Paintings. We focus on the case of Pieter Brueghel the Younger, a painter who massively reproduced the works of his well-known father Pieter Bruegel the Elder, after being in turn abundantly copied. In the late 1990s, leading expert Klaus Ertz curated an itinerant exhibition dedicated to the artist and published a catalogue raisonne' in 2000 to clarify attributions. We collected the sales of his paintings (autograph) as well as those from his atelier and followers (non-autograph) over the period 1972-2015. Using both difference-in-difference and instrumental variable techniques, we establish that Ertz's expertise had a significant effect on the prices of autograph works, since buyers were willing to pay roughly 60 percent more for works considered autograph after the late 1990s.

Keywords: Brueghel family, exhibitions, catalogue raisonné, prices, diff-in-diffs identification

JEL Classification: C59, Z11

Suggested Citation

Ginsburgh, Victor and Radermecker, Anne-Sophie and Tommasi, Denni, The Value Added by Arts Experts: The Case of Klaus Ertz and Pieter Brueghel the Younger (November 1, 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2958807 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2958807

Victor Ginsburgh

Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) - European Center for Advanced Research in Economics and Statistics (ECARES) ( email )

Ave. Franklin D Roosevelt, 50 - C.P. 114
Brussels, B-1050
Belgium

Anne-Sophie Radermecker

Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) ( email )

CP 132 Av FD Roosevelt 50
Brussels, Brussels 1050
Belgium

Denni Tommasi (Contact Author)

Monash University ( email )

23 Innovation Walk
Wellington Road
Clayton, Victoria 3800
Australia

HOME PAGE: https://sites.google.com/site/dennitommasi/

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