2017/25 | LEM Working Paper Series | ||||||||||||||||
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The impact of color palettes on the prices of paintings |
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Elena Stepanova |
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Keywords | |||||||||||||||||
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art markets, hedonic pricing, Picasso, Rothko, visual data, color, color quantizing
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JEL Classifications | |||||||||||||||||
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Z11, C810
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Abstract | |||||||||||||||||
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We emphasize that color composition is an important characteristic of
a painting. It impacts the auction price of a painting but it has
never been considered in previous studies on art markets. By using
Picasso's paintings and paintings of Color Field Abstract
Expressionists sold in Chrisite's and Sotheby's auctions in New York
between 1998 and 2016, we demonstrate the method to analyze color
compositions: how to extract color palettes from a painting image and
how to measure color characteristics. We propose two measures: 1) the
surface occupied by specific colors, 2) color diversity of a painting
composition. Controlling for all conventional painting and sale
characteristics, our empirical results find significant evidence of
contrastive paintings, i.e. paintings with high diversity of colors,
carrying a premium than equivalent artworks which are performed in
monochromatic style. In the case of Picasso's paintings, our
econometric analysis shows that some colors are associated with high
prices.
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