IDEA 20090822 Artonomics Number 1 Most Expensive Artworks

While it might sound controversial to make the first real investigation int the art economy, the most expensive artworks, it is also profound in looking at the chaotic and unpredictable art market.

Artonomics number 1 looks at the top 10 most expensive artworks, all of which are paintings, and the provides two views on this data:


 * 1) An updated list of the 10 most expensive paintings from wikipedia article
 * 2) Large scale prints, generated monthly from the most expensive paintings data which provide a graphic depiction of the painting with data overlaid

Copyright should not be a problem on most of the paintings since they are mostly old and released into the public domain.

For the prints, the problem is the overall design of the data to be laid on top of the artworks, aka, the design. Data that should be included are:


 * Images of the work (both copy and/or public photo samples of the work)
 * Adjusted price (in millions)
 * Original price (in millions)
 * Painting
 * Artist
 * Year
 * Year of sale
 * Seller
 * Buyer
 * Auction house


 * Secondary information should also be generated from the wikipedia pages, discussion pages, and links used as references

Next Steps

 * Generate graphical mockup of the design of the prints
 * Define size of the prints (ie, the size of the print should be the size of the original and/or inflated based upon value of the painting)
 * Define if the prints are to be repainted by masters, such as from Dafen, etc
 * Analyze copyright on the paintings and/if those possibly in copyright should be significantly degraded and/or images removed about them
 * Top 10 paintings should yield 10 more paintings