In 2025, the world spent US$59.6 billion on art, its first rise since 2022. Dealers and galleries still carry most of it, at US$34.8 billion, up 2%. Public auctions grew fastest, up 9% to US$20.7 billion, while private sales at auction houses slipped 5% to just under US$4.2 billion.
In India, the rise has been far steeper. Indian art sold at public auction reached Rs. 2,543 crore in 2025, about four times its 2020 level of Rs. 623 crore. And many of today's buyers are collecting for the first time.
They are not filling vaults. They are completing homes.
Source: Artprice, as published in 360 ONE, The Collector's Guide 2026.
Every figure, sourced, in The Art Market
From the Bengal School to your walls
India has declared nine artists National Art Treasures, whose works may not leave the country. Six of them came from Bengal: Rabindranath, Abanindranath and Gaganendranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Jamini Roy and Sailoz Mookherjea. That way of seeing still lives in Bengal's studios, and in the work of many of the artists we represent.
Buying for a room, not a vault
A painting bought for a room is chosen differently. Scale matters, and so does light, and the conversation it will start at the dinner table. At Goomti, we bring paintings, sculpture and commissioned work into the rooms they were meant for, and we hang them where the eye already rests.
If you are buying your first work, start with what moves you, not with what you expect to rise. Then let a curator help with the rest.
- Art Basel and UBS, The Art Market 2026. Global sales by channel, 2025, with change on 2024. Parts are rounded.
- Artprice, as published in 360 ONE, The Collector's Guide 2026. Calendar years; public auction sales only, excluding gallery and private sales.
- Antiquities and Art Treasures Act, 1972: National Art Treasures list.