Does art make a good investment?

The art market is enjoying a boom not seen since the dizzy days of the late 1908s. New records are being broken in the auction houses. Fine art is a huge investment, but is it a good one?

The art market is enjoying its dizziest ride since the late 1980s, with price records broken over the past month as Gustav Klimt's portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer fetched £73m to become the world's most expensive painting. Klimt joins Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, Cezanne, Matisse, Degas, Modigliani amd Chagall in the so-called blue-chip brigade', which commands the highest prices and biggest international interest.

Living artists are also benefiting from the bonanza. David Hockney's The Splash (pictured) achieved £2.9m £1m more than his previous record set only a month earlier, while Bridget Riley's Untitled (Diagonal Curve) joined the small group of women artists whose work attracts over £1m.

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