The Scotsman reports that European art dealers are steamed about a new EU law that will skim up to four per cent off of the purchase price of resale art and give it to the original artist. The move is designed to reimburse artists for the maddening phenomenon of watching their art inflate in value long after it’s left their studios.

Resellers and dealers apparently say that the art will just flee to New York or Geneva (Switzerland, always the non-joiner-inner, is not a member of the EU), although The Scotsman does not bother us with frills like quoting an actual art dealer. An older article from The Telegraph does, however: the chairman of the British Art Market Federation calls it “the most significant threat that faces the London art market by far.”

He also points out that since the “droit de suite” levy remains in effect for 70 years after an artist’s death, most of the money ends up going to already-wealthy descendents of the artist who have already made small fortunes auctioning off daddy’s doodlesome shopping lists and other ephemera.

Scotsman.com News - Latest News - Art Levy ‘Will Destroy Jobs’

[In other news: apologies for not posting yesterday; in penance, look for double the posts today. That is to say, two. It’ll be up later.]