“Alternative investments” generally refer to the “everything else” boxes of investments that are left out of one of the traditional boxes of stocks, bonds, and real estate purchased by “mainstream” mutual funds. Perhaps contrary to the name, many of the investments twenty-first-century advisors commonly consider “alternatives” are actually far older than the modern form of listed stocks or traded bonds. Consider the ancient history of investing in gold coins or art, private investments in shipping ventures, or Lloyd’s early insurance contracts.

The paper presents art as a special object of investment. The features of works of art and art market are presented in comparison with characteristics of securities and stock exchange market. The author takes into account the following criteria: commodity features, ownership characteristic, markets’ classification, liquidity, access to information on prices (market values), kinds of values, incomes, time horizon of investment, market indexes used for art market and stock exchange indexes. The paper takes up the issue of the most important characteristic connected with any type of investment i.e. risk and rates of return. The author presents different kinds of risks related to art investment.

For centuries, wealthy individuals and institutions have collected and consumed art for aesthetic pleasure. While anecdotal evidence suggests that some artworks have appreciated in value over time, few studies have documented investment returns in art systematically. This paper demonstrates that art could be an important asset class in many respects, worthy of addition to the long-term investment portfolios of individuals and institutions. Because individual works of art are not securitized, studying the value of works of art from financial sources is not possible. Gallery or direct-from-artists prices tend not to be reliable or easily obtainable. Auction prices, however, are reliable and publicly available. As a result, auction prices can be used as the basis for a database for determining the change in value of art objects over various holding periods.

In conditions of the stock market instability the art assets could be considered as an attractive investment. However, due to the heterogeneity of the fine art market's goods and the absence of the systematic information about the sales, researchers do not come to the same opinion about the merits of the art assets conducting studies on single segments of the market. This paper investigates the attractiveness of the fine art market for investors. Extensive data was collected to obtain a complete pattern of the market analyzing it within different segments. It constructs hedonic art price indexes using parametric and semi-parametric methodologies and assess the risk via CAPM model. The artworks in the high price sector are the potentially most profitable assets on the market, but the investments in paintings are associated with high risk.