In recent months the international art market has been going through one of its occasional periods of frenzy. Records have been set and broken: no sooner had a Gustav Klimt portrait been sold for $135 million than Sotheby's in New York made a new record for a Jackson Pollock, selling one of his early drip-paintings for $140 million. One of the explanations for this recent record-setting is that new money is coming into the market.
The same can be said of the Irish market where, in some instances, new money has inflated prices to ridiculous levels. It is often a case of not how good is the artist and his or her work, but how much is it worth and what weight will it add to social status? This can only be bad for the market, the buyers and the artists.
It is fair to say that Irish art was seriously undervalued in the past and that artists did not receive just monetary reward for their labours - though it is the sellers and auction houses that are reaping most of the benefit of the current bonanza. Some of the prices achieved at this week's auction of what the catalogues always refer to as "important Irish art" confirmed a trend that could justifiably prompt the question: is daft money being paid for the work of certain Irish artists?
Investment in property has been the primary signifier of wealth and prosperity in the new Ireland. In parallel with the rise in property values, art in general and a core group of artists in particular - some of genuine merit and set to last, others creatures of hype - have come to the attention of those with plenty of cash to invest.
The results of last Tuesday's Adam's sale, at which almost €6 million was spent by buyers, again marked out Louis le Brocquy as the most desirable among living Irish artists. One of his paintings, the particularly fine Sick Tinker Child, sold for €820,000 while another, The Fantail Pigeon, spectacularly made nine times more than when it was last put up for sale only five years ago.
Although there are still genuine collectors in the mould of Hugh Lane and Gordon Lambert, there can be no doubt that that kind of return is bound to attract investors who are only in it for the profit and not because they have any great passion for art or are keen to engage with it. There is little doubt also that they are fuelling the market in a way that might ultimately damage some contemporary artists who have a way to go in their careers.
What happens when bust follows boom - as is inevitable in the art world - and the galleries are left with high-price artists no one can afford? Art has long been a commodity on the international scene; sadly we are now catching up.