₹167.2 crore. Art Market
That was the price paid for Raja Ravi Varma’s Yashoda and Krishna. M.F. Husain’s Gram Yatra followed at around ₹118 crore.
Numbers like these can make the Art Market feel like a space reserved for collectors with extremely deep pockets.
But those headline-grabbing transactions represent only one end of the market.
Indian Modern and Contemporary Art recorded around ₹1,016 crore in auction turnover in FY25, while September 2025 alone saw approximately ₹865.8 crore in sales. At the same time, the ₹5 lakh to ₹25 lakh segment has recorded strong volume growth, with younger and millennial buyers becoming increasingly active.
So, can a retail investor actually participate in art without putting a large portion of their wealth into a single painting?
Yes.
But the starting point is not finding the next ₹100 crore artwork.
It is understanding what gives an artwork value, how ownership can be structured, what the costs involved are, and how easily you can eventually sell it.
The Art Market can offer attractive long-term returns, but it operates very differently from equities, bonds, or mutual funds. There is no daily quoted price for most artworks, liquidity can be limited, and transaction costs can be substantial.
That makes understanding the asset class particularly important before making the first purchase.
What We’re Covering Today
- Why the ₹167 crore headlines represent only one part of the Art Market
- What actually makes a painting valuable
- Three ways retail investors can participate in art
- How much of a portfolio could reasonably go towards art
- What 25 years of Indian Art Market data tells investors
1. The ₹167 crore painting and the investment nobody talks about
Raja Ravi Varma’s Yashoda and Krishna sold for approximately ₹167.2 crore.
M.F. Husain’s Gram Yatra reached around ₹118 crore.
V.S. Gaitonde’s works have also crossed extraordinary levels, with one sale reaching approximately ₹67.08 crore.
These are the numbers that make the headlines.
They also represent the extreme end of the Art Market.
In FY25, Indian Modern and Contemporary Art generated around ₹1,016 crore across global auctions. Major sales recorded sell-through rates of around 85% to 86%, meaning a large majority of the lots offered actually found buyers.
But the market has also developed a sizeable middle.
The ₹5 lakh to ₹25 lakh segment has recorded strong volume growth, with younger and millennial buyers contributing to demand. A large proportion of sold lots in the broader market also sit below ₹50 lakh.
That changes the picture considerably.
You don’t need ₹100 crore to participate in the Art Market.
The entry point can be a work priced at a few lakh rupees, depending on the artist, medium, provenance, quality, and demand for that particular work.
There is also an important distinction between the performance of the overall market and the performance of individual artworks.
The IIMA-Aura Art Indian Art Index, or IAIAI, provides a useful framework for understanding this. The index tracks 25 leading Indian modern artists and contains data on 12,341 artworks sold at auctions between 2001 and Q4 2025.
Its latest reading stood at 4,900 in Q4 2025, after reaching a record 5,613 in Q3 2025.
The market therefore has a strong history of appreciation, but returns can vary significantly depending on the period, artist, and specific artwork being studied.
And that brings us to the more important question:
What actually makes one painting valuable while another by the same artist remains relatively inexpensive?
2. Why some paintings become investments
Two paintings by the same artist can have completely different values.
The IIMA-Aura Art research gives us a useful framework for understanding why.
Artist
Established artists with strong auction records generally have a deeper pool of potential buyers.
The IAIAI’s hedonic model, which controls for factors such as artwork size, medium, and auction house, estimates the price premium associated with different artists.
In Q4 2025, V.S. Gaitonde, Tyeb Mehta, and Ganesh Pyne ranked among the artists commanding the highest estimated price premiums.
The broader 25-year auction data also shows significant concentration.
M.F. Husain accounted for 1,539 artworks, or 12.5% of all works in the dataset, while F.N. Souza accounted for another 12.3%.
A relatively small group of established artists therefore represents a significant portion of overall market activity.
Scarcity
A painting that rarely comes to market can command a premium.
This becomes particularly important for significant works by established artists, where the supply of high-quality pieces is naturally limited.
Unlike listed equities, where companies can issue additional shares, there is a finite supply of historically important artworks.
That scarcity can become an important part of the investment thesis.
Period and quality
The period in which an artwork was created can materially affect its value.
For several established artists, works from important periods such as the 1950s to 1970s can command substantially higher prices than later or less significant works.
This can create large price differences even between two works by the same artist.
So simply buying a painting because the artist is famous isn’t enough.
The particular work matters.
Provenance
Provenance means the documented history of ownership and exhibition of an artwork.
Gallery records, museum exhibitions, previous auction records, and a clear ownership history give future buyers greater information about the work.
For an investor, provenance therefore has a financial role alongside its historical importance.
A well-documented work can provide greater confidence to the next buyer, which can matter considerably when the time comes to sell.
Medium
The medium also influences price.
According to the IAIAI, using ink as the base category, oil carried a 2.55x price premium in the cumulative dataset.
In Q4 2025, that premium increased to 2.76x relative to ink.
Oil also represented 28.8% of artworks in Q4 2025, compared with 24.7% across the cumulative dataset.
Mixed media increased from 8.9% historically to 13.2% in the latest quarter, while acrylic declined from 24.7% to 18.4%.
The characteristics of an artwork can therefore have a major impact on its market value.
Before buying, the useful questions are:
What exactly am I buying? Why does this particular work have value? And who could realistically want it from me later?
Art is one part of a much larger investment universe.
If you’d like to learn about different asset classes, understand opportunities, and build stronger investment conviction, get in touch with our team and we’ll help you get started.
3. Three ways retail investors can own Art
There are three broad routes for retail investors to participate in the Art Market.
Physical Artwork
The traditional approach is to buy a painting directly through a gallery, auction house, or artist.
But the purchase price is only one part of the calculation.
Suppose a painting has a ₹10 lakh hammer price at auction.
A buyer’s premium of 15% to 25% can take the effective price to ₹11.5 lakh to ₹12.5 lakh before taxes and other costs.
Artwork currently attracts 5% GST, while GST on services such as the buyer’s premium and freight can be 18%.
Shipping and logistics can add another 2% to 5%, depending on the work.
Insurance and storage can cost approximately 0.5% to 1.5% annually.
The total buyer friction can therefore reach approximately 22% to 32% above the hammer price.
And selling has costs too.
Seller commissions can be around 10% to 15%, depending on the artwork and transaction.
Liquidity deserves even more attention.
Less than 5% of artworks re-enter public auctions within five years, while the typical realisation period can stretch to 5 to 15 years.
That is a very different ownership experience from buying a listed stock that can be sold within seconds.
An artwork may appreciate significantly and still be a poor investment if the transaction costs are too high or a suitable buyer cannot be found when you want to exit.
Fractional or Collective Ownership
A second route allows several investors to participate in a single artwork.
Instead of purchasing a ₹50 lakh painting alone, investors can collectively own interests in a higher-value work.
For retail investors, this can lower the initial capital requirement.
But the ownership structure deserves careful attention.
Before investing, ask:
- Who legally owns the artwork?
- How is it valued?
- Who stores and insures it?
- What fees are charged?
- Can you sell your stake?
- Is there a functioning secondary market?
- What happens if the platform closes?
The artwork and the legal structure both matter.
A fractional investment can make an expensive artwork accessible, but accessibility should not be confused with liquidity.
NFTs
NFTs can represent digital art or a token connected to a physical artwork.
The technology records ownership of the token, while the investment value depends on what that token actually represents and the demand for it.
In India, pure digital NFTs have limited secondary-market liquidity.
Models connected to physical custody, legal title certificates, or fractional ownership structures can provide a more tangible connection between the token and an underlying asset.
But the basic question remains the same:
What exactly do I own, and who could buy it from me later?
4. The 10% Art allocation test
Art doesn’t generate regular income like a bond coupon or rental property.
Its value depends primarily on future demand, while selling can take considerably longer than selling a listed stock or mutual fund.
That makes position sizing particularly important.
Art Allocation Guide
- 0% Allocation: You’re still learning the market.
- 5% Allocation: Small experimental exposure.
- 10% Allocation: Meaningful exposure for someone who understands the risks.
- 15%+ Allocation: Requires significantly higher conviction and understanding.
For someone building a diversified portfolio, 5% to 10% can be a sensible starting range for art exposure, depending on their overall finances, risk tolerance, and understanding of the asset.
There are four main factors behind this approach.
No regular income: You generally wait for the artwork to appreciate before realising a return.
Low liquidity: Less than 5% of artworks return to public auctions within five years.
High transaction costs: Buying can add roughly 22% to 32% over the hammer price once premiums and taxes are considered.
Long holding periods: Realisation can take 5 to 15 years.
These characteristics make art better suited to capital that an investor does not expect to need in the near term.
How to Start
Start by tracking auctions and artists before buying.
Pick a small segment of the Art Market and learn it properly.
Study actual auction prices rather than relying only on gallery asking prices.
Look at comparable works, historical results, the artist’s auction record, provenance, medium, and period.
Then make a small first purchase that allows you to learn the process.
As your understanding grows, your allocation can grow with it.
5. What 25 years of Art Market data tells investors
The IIMA-Aura Art Indian Art Index gives investors something particularly useful: a long historical dataset against which recent Art Market performance can be viewed.
The latest report covers 25 years of auction data and 12,341 artworks across 25 leading Indian modern artists.
And the numbers tell an interesting story.
Recent returns have been significantly stronger
The IAIAI recorded:
1-year CAGR: 29.3%
5-year CAGR: 15.2%
10-year CAGR: 5.3%
20-year CAGR: 4.4%
The difference between these numbers is important.
The recent five-year period has been considerably stronger than the 10-year and 20-year periods.
The index also reached 5,613 in Q3 2025, before correcting approximately 13% to 4,900 in Q4 2025.
So an investor looking only at the latest one-year return would get a very different picture from someone studying the full 25-year history.
The report also records average year-on-year returns of 12.2% over the past two decades.
The CAGR figure is lower because CAGR measures the compounded growth from the beginning to the end of the period, while an average annual return measures the average of individual yearly changes.
The takeaway is simple:
The measurement period can materially change the return number you see.
The Art Market is concentrated
Over the full dataset, M.F. Husain and F.N. Souza alone account for almost one-quarter of all artworks sold.
The Q4 2025 ranking also places V.S. Gaitonde and Tyeb Mehta at the top, with Ganesh Pyne among the leading artists by estimated price premium.
This concentration means investors need to think about artist selection, rather than treating “Indian art” as one uniform asset class.
An investor doesn’t buy the Art Market in the same way they might buy an index fund.
The specific artist and, more importantly, the specific artwork can have a significant influence on returns.
The individual artwork matters
The IAIAI’s hedonic model shows that artist, size, medium, and auction house have statistically significant effects on prices.
In Q4 2025, oil carried a 2.76x premium relative to ink.
The auction results provide a useful real-world illustration.
Tyeb Mehta’s Gesture, an oil-on-canvas work, sold for ₹53.54 crore in Q4 2025.
His The Face reached ₹19.2 crore.
A V.S. Gaitonde oil-on-canvas work sold for ₹14.4 crore.
These transactions highlight an important point.
The price of an artwork reflects a combination of factors, with the artist being only one part of the equation.
Art can experience substantial corrections
The Q4 2025 correction of approximately 13% is a useful reminder that art prices can move sharply over shorter periods.
The IAIAI also records periods of significant volatility following the global financial crisis, followed by consolidation.
This matters because an artwork bought during a strong auction cycle can take years to recover if market demand subsequently weakens.
Unlike listed equities, investors cannot simply look at a live market price and immediately decide whether to exit.
The cost of selling, availability of buyers, auction schedules, and demand for the particular work all influence the eventual outcome.
The return comes primarily from appreciation
Most artworks do not generate an income stream.
An investor therefore depends primarily on capital appreciation while carrying storage, insurance, and transaction costs throughout the holding period.
That changes the way the investment should be evaluated.
If you purchase a ₹10 lakh artwork and spend another 22% to 32% on acquisition-related costs, the artwork needs to appreciate substantially before the economics become attractive.
The same calculation applies at the time of sale, when seller commissions and other expenses can reduce the amount ultimately received.
Art can produce attractive returns, but the economics depend on the entry price, the specific artwork, holding period, transaction costs, and eventual buyer demand.
Art Market can be an investment. Start like a collector.
The ₹167 crore Raja Ravi Varma sale tells us about the ceiling of India’s Art Market.
The ₹2 lakh to ₹25 lakh segment tells us about its accessibility.
And the IIMA-Aura Art Indian Art Index gives us a longer historical perspective.
Across 25 years, the index has tracked thousands of artworks and shown how artist, medium, size, and other characteristics influence prices.
Recent returns have been strong, while the longer-term CAGR has been considerably more moderate.
That makes art an interesting asset class, but one that rewards patience and informed selection.
You don’t need to buy the next ₹100 crore painting.
You need to understand why someone might want to buy what you own five or ten years from now.
That starts with knowing the artist, understanding the work, checking its provenance, calculating the full cost of ownership, and studying the market for comparable pieces.
For most investors, art can have a place alongside traditional financial assets as a long-term portfolio allocation.
The first purchase should therefore be treated as a learning experience as much as an investment.
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