You don't buy art, you just rent it . . .

. . . at least that's the way the EU looks at it, now endorsed by a British parliamentary committee. The committee's report, "The Market for Art", covers much besides droit de suite (the BBC writeup focuses on the proposals to regulate art trading, which seem singlemindedly directed at the top end of the market with no consideration of the potential burdens on everyone else).

I confess to not having followed the debate over droit de suite that closely in recent years, but it seems terribly messy to have one region giving artists and their heirs a perpetual retroactive right to collect a commission on resale, while the rest of the world allows art buyers full and unconditional title to their purchases. On the other hand, a place that accepts the television tax might find nothing wrong with paying a tax on pictures that don't move as well.

Posted by David on April 11, 2005 9:50 AM