On the Influence of Cultural Value on Economic Value

This article clarifies and delivers a better understanding of the difference between cultural value and economic value, and of the process through which a change in the cultural value of an item changes the economic valuation of that item. Sometimes the cultural value of visual works, music scores and texts might be safely ignored by economists were it sufficiently isolated from the value created in currency-using exchanges. But more generally, there is reason to believe that the two varieties of value are interdependent. The economic and artistic histories of three paintings are analyzed that show how the cultural value of certain items determines their economic value. Raffaello Sanzio's "Madonna of the Pinks" shows how the increase of cultural value creates a corresponding increase in economic value. Rembrandt's "Man in a Golden Helmet" shows an opposed example. Jackson Pollock's "Number 12, 1949" illustrates the progressive formation of both artistic and economic value. The cases selected should be understood as early empirical probes into a yet unexplored scientific territory.