Christie’s is the world’s oldest and largest auction house, dealing in fine art, antiques, jewelry, and real estate with 85 offices in over 43 countries. In 2017, seven out of the top-notch ten art works were sold at this British auction house. Each item is simultaneously bidden for via a live platform, online, and through phone orders.

In 2017, the auction art sales at Christie’s broke its own worldwide sales record of €5.8 billion. The most significant art piece sold that year was Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, Salvator Mundi or Savior of the World, which was sold by Russian collector Dmitry Rybolovlev to Louvre Abu Dhabi for over $450 million at Christie’s New York auction house. This is the highest price ever paid for an art piece at any auction. So which country’s GDP should da Vinci’s sixteenth century masterpiece count as a part of—France, Abu Dhabi, Russia, the United States, or the United Kingdom? Since the painting was commissioned in the early sixteenth century by the French monarch, Louis XII, it was counted as part of France’s GDP in the year when it was painted, i.e., 1,500. The sale does not affect either Abu Dhabi or Russia’s GDP. However, since Christie’s services were rendered on U.S. soil by the British auction house via its New York branch, it would have been recorded as a service brokerage fee in the United States’ GDP in 2017. As we shall study later in the chapter, once the brokerage income fee is remitted to the United Kingdom, it is recorded under its national income or gross national product (GNP). So, although masterpieces like this date way back to the early sixteenth century and its valuation does not contribute to current GDP, the cost of getting together interested buyers and getting a lucrative price for it does indeed get counted.

Question

Would a contemporary painting completed in 2017 and sold by Christie’s in the same year be recorded in GDP of 2017? What about a painting painted in 2015?