You Own a $110 Million Basquiat. How Much Can You Borrow Against It?

In May 2017, Jean-Michel Basquiat's Untitled sold at Sotheby's in New York for $110.5 million.

It was an extraordinary price for a painting that had sold for just $19,000 in 1984.

Now imagine you own it.

You don't want to sell.

But you need $50 million in cash — perhaps for a business, a property purchase or another investment.

Could you walk into a bank with a Basquiat and borrow that much money?

Potentially, yes.

There is an entire lending market built around turning expensive art into cash without selling it.

But the interesting part isn't that someone will lend against a painting.

It's what happens next.

A $110 Million Auction Price Doesn't Mean a $110 Million Collateral Value

First, an important distinction.

Basquiat's Untitled is being used here as a hypothetical example. There is no suggestion that this particular painting has been pledged for the loan described below.

Its $110.5 million auction price is real.

But take the painting to a lender today and the conversation starts again.

The lender doesn't simply ask:

What did someone pay for it?

It needs to answer a harder question:

If the borrower stops paying, how much could we realistically recover from this painting?

That means a new appraisal.

The lender may consider comparable auction sales, the period in which the work was created, condition, provenance, authenticity and the depth of the market for similar works.

Even the year matters.

Basquiat's 1982 works occupy an especially important place in his market, and Untitled comes from that period.

So the first rule is simple:

Auction price ≠ collateral value.

A painting can have several different prices depending on why someone needs to value it.

So How Much Could You Actually Borrow?

Let's make the example simple.

Suppose a professional appraisal values the Basquiat at:

$100 million

Now we need another number: the loan-to-value ratio, or LTV.

Bank of America Private Bank says its fine-art loans are generally limited to 50% of appraised value.

Under that assumption:

$100 million appraised value

× 50% LTV

=

$50 million in borrowing capacity

Suddenly, a painting on a wall has potentially unlocked $50 million in cash.

And the owner hasn't sold it.

Which raises an obvious question.

Where is the Basquiat now?

Could the Painting Still Hang in Your House?

It can.

Bank of America explicitly says qualifying clients may borrow against their art while maintaining possession of the pieces. Its own description of the process says the collateral is reappraised annually while remaining on the client's walls.

This can sound strange at first.

If the bank lends you $50 million against a painting but you still have the painting, what exactly does the bank have?

A secured interest in the collateral.

The lender doesn't have to display the Basquiat in its own lobby to protect the loan.

The transaction is documented. Ownership and purchase records are checked. Appraisals and insurance certificates are required. Legal documentation gives the lender rights over the pledged collateral if the borrower fails to meet the terms of the loan.

As long as everything goes normally, the collector keeps the art.

If the loan goes badly, the painting stops being just something to look at.

It becomes something that may have to be sold.

What If the Basquiat Falls From $100 Million to $70 Million?

This is where art-backed lending gets more interesting.

Start with:

Painting value: $100 million

Loan: $50 million

The LTV is 50%.

The lender has a large cushion.

Now suppose the art market weakens and a later appraisal values the painting at only:

$70 million

The debt hasn't magically fallen with it.

The borrower still owes $50 million.

The new LTV is about:

71%

Nothing about the physical painting changed.

But the lender's safety cushion just became much smaller.

This isn't merely theoretical.

During the recent art-market slowdown, lenders including Sotheby's and Christie's issued margin calls after the values of works pledged against loans declined, according to the Financial Times. Borrowers could be asked to provide cash or additional artwork as collateral.

And stress in the market has become visible elsewhere.

A 2025 Deloitte/ArtTactic survey cited by the FT found that 50% of non-bank art lenders reported defaults in 2024, compared with 17% in 2022.

That brings us to an even stranger problem.

A Stock Has a Price Every Second. A Basquiat Doesn't.

If Tesla shares fall 30%, everyone can see it.

There is a market price on a screen.

A Basquiat doesn't work that way.

There is only one Untitled (1982).

You cannot open an app at 2:17 p.m. and see its live price.

So how does a lender decide that a $100 million painting is now worth $70 million?

It has to be valued again.

Bank of America says artwork pledged under its fine-art lending program is professionally appraised and then reappraised annually because art values fluctuate.

That appraisal can look at recent sales of comparable works, the artist's market, the specific period of the artist's career, condition, provenance and other factors affecting saleability.

This creates a risk that doesn't exist in the same way with publicly traded stocks.

It's not just that the price can fall.

It can be difficult to know exactly what the price is today.

And for a lender, that matters.

Its real question isn't whether the painting is culturally important.

It's whether the painting can eventually be converted into enough cash to repay the debt.

One $100 Million Basquiat May Not Be the Bank's Favorite Collateral

Here's another counterintuitive part.

You might assume that a single extraordinary $100 million Basquiat would be the perfect collateral.

A lender may prefer something else:

a collection.

Bank of America's published guidelines say its fine-art lending program typically serves collectors with internationally recognized collections worth at least $20 million, with loans starting at $10 million.

More importantly, the bank says collections usually need to be diversified across artists and periods.

It has selectively lent against a single particularly strong work, but describes lending against a diversified collection as the customary approach.

Why?

For roughly the same reason a portfolio containing one stock can be riskier than a portfolio containing many.

Imagine two pools of collateral.

Portfolio A

$100 million of Basquiat.

Portfolio B

$100 million spread across Basquiat, Warhol, Monet, Picasso and Hockney.

If demand for Basquiat suddenly weakens, Portfolio A absorbs the full impact.

Portfolio B may not.

The collector sees a collection of artworks.

The lender also sees a portfolio of risks.

Do Wealthy Collectors Really Borrow Hundreds of Millions Against Art?

Yes.

And this is where our hypothetical Basquiat starts to look much less hypothetical as a financial structure.

Recently disclosed documents examined by the Financial Times showed a real art-backed lending arrangement involving a major billionaire collection.

Sotheby's had valued dozens of pledged artworks at around $1 billion, while a Bank of America credit facility tied to the art reached roughly $470 million.

The collateral included works by some of the most established names in the art market.

The point isn't the identity of the borrower.

It's the scale.

Our hypothetical:

$100 million of art → $50 million loan

is not an absurd thought experiment.

At the very top of the wealth market, art can support credit facilities worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Why Not Just Sell the Painting?

This may be the most obvious question of all.

If someone needs $50 million and owns a $100 million painting, why not sell it?

Because selling solves the cash problem by giving up the asset.

Borrowing can potentially provide both:

Keep the Basquiat.

Get the cash.

Bank of America lists business financing, charitable giving, acquiring additional art and funding other long-term projects among the reasons clients use art-backed credit.

There are other considerations too.

A sale takes time.

Transaction costs can be significant.

A collector may believe the work will appreciate.

Or the owner may simply have no desire to sell a painting that took years to acquire.

For someone whose wealth is concentrated in assets rather than cash, borrowing can turn an illiquid object into usable capital without permanently giving it up.

That's why art-backed lending has become a business of its own.

Art-Backed Lending Is Bigger Than It Looks

This isn't a handful of collectors quietly borrowing against paintings.

The 2025 Deloitte Private & ArtTactic Art & Finance Report estimated the global market for loans secured by art and collectibles at roughly:

$33.9 billion to $40 billion

in 2025.

It projected the market could reach:

$42 billion to $50.1 billion

by 2027.

Those numbers help explain why private banks, auction houses and specialist lenders all compete in this corner of finance.

But they also explain why the risks matter.

The same falling art prices that make collectors reluctant to sell can also reduce the value of the collateral behind their loans.

In other words, borrowing against art doesn't eliminate market risk.

It can transform market risk into credit risk.

So What Is a $110 Million Basquiat Really Worth?

We started with a simple number:

$110.5 million.

That's what someone paid for Untitled at Sotheby's in 2017.

But after looking at how art finance works, that number no longer tells the whole story.

The collector may have one idea of its value.

An auction house may estimate what buyers might pay.

An insurer has to think about the financial consequences of loss or damage.

And a lender needs to know how much money could realistically be recovered if the loan fails.

Same painting.

Different questions.

Different values.

A collector sees a Basquiat.

An auction house sees a possible sale.

An insurer sees a risk that has to be covered.

A lender sees collateral.

And that's what makes the financial life of expensive art so unusual.

A painting doesn't have to be sold to become money.

Sometimes the more revealing question isn't:

“How much is this painting worth?”

It's:

“Who is asking?”

BEYOND THE OBVIOUS.

Sources

Sotheby's — Basquiat's $110.5 million Untitled sale

Sotheby's — Basquiat's Finest Hour

Bank of America Private Bank — Using Your Art Collection as Loan Collateral

Financial Times — Art Lenders Issue Margin Calls as Painting Prices Fall

Financial Times — Defaults on Art-Backed Loans Soar in Struggling Market