Collecting Antiquities Is a Growing Trend. But It Can Be Tricky.

Deborah Lehr as featured on The New York Times

Antiquities used to be a relatively sleepy segment of the art market, until about a decade ago when art galleries and auction houses started mixing 20th-century paintings with ancient artifacts. Agnes Martin’s minimalist paintings and Giorgio de Chirico’s surrealist works, after all, made reference to classical Greek and Roman statues, so there was a certain logic to displaying them together.

Emanuela Tarizzo, the new director of Frieze Masters, which opens this month in London (Oct. 16-19), said that trend in both exhibitions and in interior design started attracting a new generation of collectors in their 30s and 40s to all sorts of antiquities.