Many who follow the art market, probably at least once heard the phrase that capitalization of Picasso's works is comparable with the capitalization of "Gazprom". Some sources says that the whole of Picasso's standing as half of "Gazprom", in other — that these values are comparable. Not the point. In short, there is a widespread judgment that turned into "Internet-мем".

Can you check? Is it possible to calculate how much the whole Picasso? At least very roughly?

savvy People immediately flap you arms: impossible! Picasso — is one of the most prolific artists in the history of art. The number of created works is not known with accuracy even up to tens of thousands. Pictures — from 2000 dollars for a lottery drawing or ceramics to 106 000 000 dollars for a picturesque masterpiece. And it is not a masterpiece "Guernica" or "Avignon maidens", about the market value, which will be judged purely hypothetically.

nevertheless. If you treat such evaluation not only of Picasso, but as a logical exercise in comic genre, then you can try. And even there-какие the raw data on which to draw estimates:

1. For the last 4 years (we take the period 2010-2013, to ensure that prices were current) the global auction market, according to statistics artprice.com was sold 12 093 works of Picasso for a total amount of 1 020 324 950 dollars (excluding fees allowances auction houses). In these 12 093 artwork included everything: the masterpieces of painting more than 100 million dollars, type "Boy with a pipe" and "Nude on a background of the bust", and original graphics, and an abundance of graphics draw. Roughly it turns out that in the period under review, the average value of the contingent works of Picasso was 109 563 USD. For art lovers, such averaging sounds monstrous, but it is possible to blink.

2. Over the past 28 years was sold at auction 44 800 works by Picasso, including re-sales, etc. in the sales structure the ratio between original works (all art forms) and the lottery drawing was approximately 19% and 81 %. Here, too, there are nuances, but the sample is quite representative and for rough calculation of this ratio we will soon be useful.

3. The main question remains: what is all-таки volume of the creative legacy of Picasso? In the most authoritative directory-резоне Zervos, which costs 20 thousand dollars, mentioned 16,000 original works of Picasso. Based on the identified ratio between the original work and draw graphics from paragraph 2 (19 to 81) it can be assumed that the lottery drawing from Picasso about 68 000 units. That is a total of the entire volume of the original and draw works can be estimated at 84 000 units. It surpasses the wildest third-party evaluation, but propose that all doubts be interpreted in favor of Picasso.

4. Now we can assume and "capitalization Picasso": 84 000 works be multiplied by 109 563 of the dollar, the price of equivalent compositions in 2010-2013, and received 9.2 billion dollars.

At this level, capitalization of "Gazprom" was where the-то in 1996 (source: gazprom.ru). And now, in July 2014-го, the value of the shares of "Gazprom" exceeds 103 billion dollars (source: finam.ru).

That is not "Gazprom", but according to our estimates, the cost of all the works of Picasso exceeds the current capitalization of the Novolipetsk metallurgical combine (sources: riarating.ru, finam.ru). And quite comparable with the annual turnover of all the global auction art market.

Funny calculations, but they give a good example that with the right approach, art can be not only a tool of intellectual and moral development, but also to become quite a sector of the economy. The multi-billion dollar "corporations" and the active "small businesses".

Vladimir Bogdanov, AI