The $62 Million Art World Coup

What happened to the “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II”?

It was the year 2006. An auction room thrumming with anticipation, a gavel raised and then crashed down as an art piece set a new record for its creator. The work of art was the “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II”, a painting steeped in controversy, its past marred by theft in the darkest era of WWII. The original owners' family had bravely fought the Austrian government, emerging victorious, and their story of resilience inspired the acclaimed film “Woman in Gold”.

The new owner was as enigmatic as the painting's backstory. She admired it, treasured it, and offered the world a glimpse of its beauty, lending it to renowned institutions, among them, a five-year sojourn at the MoMA.

Eleven years later, in 2017, the owner decided to part ways with the painting, passing it on to an anonymous Chinese collector. And the price she received? An astronomical $150 million dollars pocketing $62 million in the deal. A profit that would make even the savviest business tycoon stop and take note.

If art could fetch such profits, you might ask, why doesn't everyone jump on this bandwagon? The answer, my friends, is as clear as the fine print on a million-dollar check - most of us simply don't have $88 million dollars lying around to invest.

But, dear listener, times are changing. A door has opened, thanks to the ingenuity of tokenization. With the help of existing investment law, we've paved a path for the everyday asset owner to get involved in selling assets like art, real estate and equity in fractions of the usual price.

Why tokenization of art, you ask? Well, if we look at the numbers, contemporary art prices have outperformed the S&P by 174% from 1995 to 2020. It's no surprise then that Ivy League endowments have invested 10 times more into art since the start of the new millennium. Tokenization opens the door for prices to increase and interest to increase given the access to the investment world.

Now, let's reveal the name of the woman who flipped a painting for a cool $62 million dollars. She's a woman who started her journey in Mississippi, rose to fame as a talk show host, became a media mogul, and is known across the globe as a philanthropist.

And that woman, ladies and gentlemen, is none other than Oprah Winfrey. And that's the rest of the story.

—

If you want to get involved with tokenizing assets like these before any of your competitors, you can join asset owners who have already taken the plunge.