Fine Art Valuation works with a wide range of collectors to build and manage incredible collections of art. Whether you’re looking to develop an impressive art investment portfolio or simply enhance your collection of beautiful pieces, we can advise you.
Our team of qualified fine art valuers is skilfully placed to work on the development and management of your collection. They offer expert insight into many areas of fine art investment across a range of specialist areas. However the list of services we detail on our website is not exhaustive; we are asked to work on all sorts of projects across some really unusual subjects.
Collection Building
When a client comes to us with a requirement or dream of creating a new collection of art they often come with a very loose brief. It is only with thorough research that we can define the collecting criteria and set about putting it together.
This involves visiting museums, other public and private collections, perusing catalogues and documentation in our extensive reference library to agree with the client exactly what their collection is to contain. We need to establish whether the collection is to be an investment or a labour of love, suggest budgets and timescales and discuss condition, provenance, method of acquisition etc.
Once we have that in place we have to set about identifying potential targets for acquisition. We have extremely good relationships with all the major auction houses and dealers and one of our strengths is the ability to aggressively source pieces via private sources.
Building a collection takes time. It requires thorough research and knowledge and the ability to be flexible and very patient.
Collection Management
Most collections are constantly evolving and need some form of management.
Our curatorial role can involve:
- Cataloguing
- Collection management system set up
- Loans
- Insurance
- Transport
- Restoration and repair
- Responding to scholarly enquires
- Research
However our team are also experienced business people in their own right who understand the art of negotiation, the value of thorough research, efficient budgeting and dynamic marketing. To that end we can manage your collection rather like a business by:
- Replacing inferior examples with superior ones when available
- Selling and purchasing when market conditions are favourable
- Striving to generate an income to fund further acquisitions
We understand that a good collection requires plenty of behind the scenes hard work and commitment and we can provide our experts on a full time, part time or ad hoc basis.
Valuations
Our team are all RICS approved degree qualified fine art valuers and we value high net worth items for the purpose of probate, insurance, capital taxes and divorce.
We can also provide one-off catalogues or inventories and advice and documentation relating to theft and recovery of stolen goods.
All documentation is fully illustrated and provided in both hard copy and electronic form.
Fine Art Valuation Ltd is completely independent of any auction house or dealer.