Abstract

Value is an ambiguous word. It is, at once, commonly used and understood, and yet one of the weightiest concepts in all of formal thought. Today, for many people, value and valuing have become synonymous with price and rare objects or even human attributes, which as a society we have endowed with an inherent sense of worthiness, seem to be reducible to a number. The purpose of this study is to investigate this connection between value and price through a case study approach which is both historical and constructive. More precisely, this study examines our underlying notions of value within the history of economic thought and aesthetics and their interplay in the evolution of a modern art market, in particular for painting. Within the context of contemporary economics, it suggests that art as a unique product of human genius, whose real (equilibrium) price is seemingly 'rudderless', may provide useful insights into broader questions regarding the basis of economic value. It argues that in order to gain a deeper understanding of value, art and the market, we need to look beyond the restrictiveness of economic models to the origins of our modern idea of art and to the art work's changing identity as a social-economic good. The underlying premise is that value is essentially socially constructed.