The Index
How a price gets made here
Every price on this site comes from sales we can point to, run through one published model, then signed off by a person. Here is the whole process, including the parts that are still rough. An index you cannot check is not worth much.
Coverage by market
- 690
- Nigeria
- 921
- South Africa
- 144
- Other countries represented
artists tracked
artists tracked
beyond the primary markets
Benefits
The method is public
The model, its inputs, and every source are written up and open. If you want to argue with a number, you can see exactly how we got it.
Real sales, not estimates on estimates
Each figure traces back to an auction result or a gallery price we recorded, with the citation attached.
A range, and how sure we are
A verified price is a range with a confidence interval. A wide range means treat it with care. We would rather tell you that than paper over it.
A person signs off
Nothing publishes until a reviewer has checked the sources, the model inputs, and any doubt about which artist is which.
Uses
See where an artist’s market sits before you bid or sell. A tight range and a wide one should change how much weight you put on the figure.
A reference you can put in front of a client, with citations they can follow. Handy for internal valuations too.
A record of the African art market over time that you can cite, with the method attached to every figure.
Two tracks, never blended
Verified
For artists with enough auction history to model. A hedonic regression puts a price on a work from its artist, medium, size, venue, and period, fit against every sale we have on record. You get a range with a confidence interval, plus a liquidity score for how often that artist’s work actually trades.
Emerging: Momentum Score
For artists with little or no auction record. A single score built from exhibition frequency, gallery representation, and where the market seems to be heading. We call it a momentum score, not a valuation, because the data cannot carry a price.
Reading the output
The same artist's work can sell for very different sums from one lot to the next. The range is the band we think a sale would plausibly land in. It is not a floor, and it is not a promise.
One number would look more precise than the data really is. So every estimate shows its range and its tier. There is no bare figure anywhere on this site, on purpose.
Plenty of recent, consistent sales make it narrow. Thin or scattered data makes it wide. A wide interval is us being honest, not us being sloppy.
Methodology whitepaper
Subscribe once to unlock the methodology whitepaper
Subscribe once. You get the methodology paper the day it lands, plus every other download on the site right now. One form, and we will not ask again.