Book Review: The Art Collecting Legal Handbook, Bruno W. Boesch And Massimo Sterpi, eds. (3rd ed., 2023)

March 6, 2024

By Briana Pierre

In 2023, two of the leading art attorneys and scholars Bruno W. Boesch (Switzerland) and Massimo Sterpi (Italy) revised and released the third edition of The Art Collecting Legal Handbook, acquainting readers with the legal procedures of acquiring digital art like Non-Fungible Tokens (“NFTs”). Beginning with COVID’s impact on auction markets and technological trade, Boesch and Massimo divulge how NFTs, AI image generators, and digital art trade became a new form of commodity when in-person gatherings were not possible.

The Art Collecting Legal Handbook guides investors, collectors, and advisors on navigating the new era of buying digital artworks. The book contains two Parts:

• Part I – Themes contains three chapters on the fluctuating Art market, what an NTF is, and understanding indirect taxes with digital art; and
• Part II – National discusses cultural property on the national level and international level incorporating 26 countries. Each Chapter considers a country’s cultural property laws and the efforts in selling and buying artworks.

Part 1 – Current Themes

The fluctuating art market

Chapter 1: Christine Bourron (CEO, Pi-eX Ltd) offers a chapter entitled “The Same Ever Changing Art Market.” Here readers garner the art market economic landscape through  reference to the “Pi-eX’s Auction Market Index (Pi-eX AMI), which tracks monthly public auction results at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips.”^[1] The index indicates exponential growth during the COVID pandemic over 2.5 years. In a combination of three auctions, their earnings “doubled from a low of $6.4 billion in June 2020 to $13.8 billion in June 2022, before reaching over $13.9 billion in November 2022.”^[2] This monetary growth testifies to the influence of digital art, online auction trading, and NFTs.

In the subsequent sections, the book details the current factors affecting auction houses. Given that the peak of the COVID pandemic was three years ago, live auctions were not a viable option, and the auction houses utilized online auction sales. This digital method of selling art allowed “auction houses to more than ever collect, analyze, and leverage data and information about bidders and buyers.”^[3]

As a result of attaining user information, auction houses can anticipate what collectors or investors want to purchase. Auction houses’ marketing strategy and series of sales can become specific and localized, and “are now able to create and advertise auctions to a very targeted set of potential buyers.”^[4] For instance, auction houses can create a new series of sales based on their clientele’s interests rather than current art trends.

User information is one of many data points entering the auction houses. As more artworks are cataloged, information about the works is “published, and more buyers pay attention, the performance of irrevocable bids has decreased.”^[5] Irrevocable bids prompt people to bid as a show of faith that the artwork will sell at the highest predicted price or over. Irrevocable bids are a strategy from the 2008 crisis to motivate bidders into buying art. Irrevocable bids are used as a tool for auction houses “to remove the risk they are taking when offering sellers an auction house guarantee”^[6] and for sellers “to categorically avoid the risk of a bought-in, as artworks are pre-sold ahead of the public auctions.”^[7]

A by-product of online auctions is digital transparency. Auctions can understand how their bidders create less need for irrevocable bids. Since auction houses better understand who the bidders are, there is more transparency on the bidder’s intention to buy the artwork.

Lastly, there has been an increase in interest in new art forms. Most notably, a rise in NFT sales, which is described as “a sign of potential purchasing power” of a new generation of collectors.^[8] In addition to NFT sales, there’s an interest in trading luxury fashion.

Issues on NFTs

Chapter 2, submitted by Syndey Chiche-Attali, founder of a firm and a member of the Paris Bar, demystifies NFTs and clarifies the issues that surround them.

As mentioned earlier, an NFT, or non-fungible token is a unique digital ID that acts as “a permanent digital record of ownership, that is, an entry in a decentralized public ledger, called a blockchain.”^[9] This allows for individualized ownership in digital art mediums like videos, graphic art, and photography. As NFTs become increasingly popular, more people become acquainted in a decentralized market wherein buyers and sellers transact with one another.

If NFTs represent an entry, users can embed their parameters within the work. “[R]ights associated with the NFT depend on what the smart contract or the platform’s terms and conditions provide: ownership, use, access, exploitation, etc.”^[10]

Chiche-Attali lists four problems NFTs in areas regarding cyber risk, artist’s copyright, unstable market, and lack of legislation. One salient issue is the market. NFTs are a budding way to sell digital artworks but still need improvement in creating a stable market. The market is “prone to price manipulation and insider trading,”^[11] which are markers of an unregulated market.

Finding One’s Way in the Indirect Maze

In the final chapter of Part I, “Finding One’s Way in the Indirect Tax Maze” contributed by Neil Millen of Christie’s, conclude with an overview of indirect tax. Indirect taxes are taxes on artworks based on their location and the type of art. In the further sections, this book provide a step-by-step guide on considering artwork and indirect taxes that may apply.

With respect to digital art and NFTs, Boesch and Sterpi and their co-authors recommend readers consider “where in the supply chain each transacting party sits, particularly for more complex arrangements when access to particular tax rules are needed.”^[12] Readers will receive recommendations of what to consider: the object of the work, the location, custom status, and jurisdiction.

In Part II, Boesh and Sterpi widen the scope to a global scale, including 26 countries, to see how indirect tax changes in each country. The newest edition is certainly expanded and improved reference for art attorneys and art collectors across many jurisdictions, all operating in the ever-growing international art market.

Impressions and Conclusion

The Art Collecting Legal Handbook is an informative manual on auction market sales, artistic trends like NFTs, and how different countries are currently considering cultural property. Boesch and Steppi is compiled in a manner that is easy for curious beginners who want to learn more about how NFTs affect cultural property law. While NFTs are a new area of art that is becoming more globally established, proper legislation for NFTs has yet to be enacted. The Art Collecting Legal Handbook illuminates how countries consider cultural property and seller, artist, and collector rights in a fluctuating market.

About The Author

Briana Pierre (Center for Art Law Spring 2024 Intern) graduated from NYU in May 2023 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Studio Art, and she is passionate about the arts and how the law affects the arts and its surroundings. Specifically, she is interested in cultural restitution, artist rights, and consignments law. Briana Pierre enjoys painting, drawing, and ceramics.

 Source:

1. Bruno W. Boesch and Massimo Sterpi, The Art Collecting Legal Handbook: Third Edition 3rd Edition, Edward Elgar Publishing (2023), page 2. ↑
2. Id, 3. ↑
3. Id, 4. ↑
4. Id, 5. ↑
5. Id, 6 ↑
6. Id, 6 ↑
7. Id, 6 ↑
8. Id, 7 ↑
9. Id, 10 ↑
10. Id, 11 ↑
11. Id, 15 ↑
12. Id, 19 ↑