The article endeavours to construct a model that links the gap between returns to an investment in ‘Fine Art’ and the ‘real’ price of the 'Fine Art' being traded. Thus the process used in creating shared value within the market for 'Fine Art' is examined. Art prices are usually set in the primary market through the auction process, which should also typically reflect an efficient way of creating shared value. As the auction process in the primary art market is not efficient; it does not create shared value as would occur in a typical free market structure. Artificial rigidities exist within the primary art market; thus the links between the primary art market and the secondary art market are shown by incorporating the concepts of the 'Value of Information' and ‘Strategic Uncertainty’ into the transmission mechanism.

Orientation: The global financial markets have been severely affected by the influence of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Across the board, most of the financial markets have experienced a very sharp decrease in trade as a consequence of this pandemic. Investors sometimes choose to include such assets in order to diversify portfolios and also at the same time distribute risk away from the usual financial markets. As the global economy begun to falter under the influence of COVID-19, the value of holding fine art as an alternative investment increased.Research purpose: This article examines the implications of the impact of COVID-19 on the financial markets and the global art markets. This article explores the real impact of COVID-19 on the respective stock markets and then compared it against the global art price index, both in European euro and American dollar.Motivation for the study: The impact of COVID-19 will have numerous spill over effects into other sectors of the economy, one such sector being the market for fine art. Fine art as an investment item has many desirable qualities to an investor and can act as an alternative investment asset because of its ability to hold value.Research approach/design and method: Five financial markets are analysed in this study, namely the German DAX, the American Dow Jones, the Japanese Nikkei and the London Stock Exchange and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE), by using a combination of market simulations and forecast techniques, including Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), Generalized Auto-Regressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH), Monte Carlo simulation and Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) techniques. The real impact of COVID-19 is assessed on the respective stock markets and then compared against the global art price index, both in European euro and American dollar.Main findings: The findings show that there is a significant positive influence on holding fine art as an alternative investment, especially as the levels of market risk increase because of COVID-19.Practical/managerial implications: The impact of an economic or social crisis has led to a diversification of trade in investments. Similar to currency portfolios been diverted into gold trade to mitigate risk due to political or social unrest, equity trading has mitigated some risk into alternative forms of investment.Contribution/value-add: This article highlights the nature of portfolio diversification into fine art as an alternative investment, brought about due to extreme market conditions.

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