After a year of falling sales and geopolitical tension, collectors are taking a breath rather than a gamble. According to the Art Basel & UBS Survey of Global Collecting 2025, released Thursday, aggregate art-market sales fell 12 percent by value in 2024 to $57.5 billion; data from early 2025 has shown “no significant signs of change.”

Like last year, the contraction was driven mainly by a slowdown at the top end of the market. Public auction results from Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips were down about 7 percent in the first half of 2025, the report notes, even as lower-price segments stayed active.

Despite the sales chill, sentiment remains strikingly upbeat. Eighty-four percent of high-net-worth collectors said they were optimistic about the global art market’s short-term future, very slightly down from 91 percent a year earlier.

Even over a 12-month horizon, 81 percent remained optimistic, with pessimistic naysayers making up only 5 percent of respondents. 

That optimism is not blind. Collectors appear to be shifting from speculation to stewardship. Only 25 percent plan to sell art...