The Artex company announced Thursday that the listing of a triptych by the British artist Francis Bacon, the first work listed on its art stock exchange, would begin on Friday. Artex, a company co-founded by Prince Wenceslas of Liechtenstein, obtained an operating license in Liechtenstein in January 2023 to operate as an art stock exchange within a regulatory framework.
Its financial model consists of listing companies under Luxembourg law on the stock market, each of which owns a work of art. The shares of these companies are listed and therefore tradable on Artex, with the aim of democratizing investment in art. The triptych “Three studies for a portrait of George Dyer” will thus be listed via the company Art Share 002 S.A., whose share price has been set at 92.20 euros, which values it at an amount of 50.7 million euros ($55 million), according to a press release from Artex.
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Negotiations on this title will begin on Friday March 8 at 12:50 p.m. “This is the first work by a great master ever listed on the stock exchange, and we look forward to presenting the other masterpieces that we have selected,” rejoices Yassir Benjelloun-Touimi, co-founder and general manager of Artex Stock Exchange, cited in the press release. He hopes that this first listing opens “the way for the development of a new asset class”.
Bacon’s work, the first triptych in a series of five, painted in 1963, represents three views of the face of his greatest muse, George Dyer, a few months after their meeting. These three paintings in an “intimate” format (35.5 cm x 30.5 cm) show “changing faces rendered in a semi-abstract blur”, thanks to “dynamic brushstrokes”, explains Artex.