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An art auction or fine art auction is the sale of art works, in most cases in an auction house.
In England this dates from the latter part of the 17th century, when in most cases the names of the auctioneers were suppressed. In June 1693, John Evelyn mentions a "great auction of pictures (Lord Melfort's) in the Banqueting House, Whitehall", and the practice is frequently referred to by other contemporary and later writers.
The art market is the marketplace of buyers and sellers trading commodities, services, and works of art.
The art market follows an economic model that considers more than supply and demand; it is a market where art is bought and sold for values based not only on a work's perceived cultural value, but on its past monetary value as well as its predicted future value. The market has been described as one where producers do not create work primarily for sale. Buyers often have no clear understanding of the value of what they buy, and middlemen routinely receive compensation for sales of items they have never seen, to buyers they have never interacted with. Moreover, the market is not transparent; private sales data are not systematically available, and private sales represent about half of market transactions. In 2018, Robert Norton, CEO and co-founder of Verisart, noted that "Art is the second-largest unregulated market after illicit drugs and it's significantly overshadowed by fraudulent activity."