The Stories Behind the Artwork
Nowadays, when it comes to the artworks, we will immediately thinking about a group of wealthy people appear at parties talking about the works of a certain painter they just bought and commenting on them, or people bidding against each other in the auction. In fact, apart from these, there are a few unknown stories behind the artwork. Today, I will tell you some.
In the Qing Dynasty, the first place for any officers who came to Beijing to bribe was Liulichang. Only through the owners of Liulichang, they would know what calligraphy and paintings are in the family of the officer they want to bribe. Then, they would entrust the owner of Liulichang to go to the officier’s house to spend a lot of money to purchase the painting. After that, the officer who wants to bribe only needs to take the painting as a gift to visit the him. After painting was seen by the officer, he will immediately realize what happened. In this way, the purpose of the official who wanted to bribe was achieved.
Today, the transaction volume of art market is usually very stable. Even in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic, the art market transactions had not been affected at all. Because of this, there are many people who want to make money from it. In order to make a fortune from this market, they usually select the most promising students from various art schools and then buy out their works. Then in the next few years, through the cooperation of their own companies and auction houses, they continue to speculate, buy and sell themselves, and increase the popularity and prices of these artists, waiting for the time to come and make a lot of money. For example, the famous British artist Damien Hirst established his foothold in the art market in this way.
Having said that, then you must think that those who buy the work at last are the last leeks. The answer is of course not. In foreign countries, such as Australia, donating artworks can be used to deduct tax. By donating artworks, these people not only save a lot of taxes, but also get the title of a great philanthropist and improve their reputation. Help your own business. Yes, you read it right. Those who sell paintings can make money, dealers can draw commissions, and those who buy paintings can be tax deductible and become a great philanthropist. The painter gained both fame and fortune. In this transaction cycle, everyone is a winner. Sometimes it is true that the art market is an unsupervised financial trading market.
These stories sound incredible, but they all happened. For ordinary people like us, we can only "see the situation with a smile".
