The institutional data layer for the global art market.

Quickstart

Make your first authenticated request in under a minute. The example below fetches the top 10 artists ranked by total auction sales.

# List the top 10 artists by total sales
curl "https://api.liveart.ai/v1/artists?limit=10&sort_by_total_sales=desc&is_top=true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $LIVEART_API_KEY" \
  -H "Accept: application/json"

import os, requests

resp = requests.get(
    "https://api.liveart.ai/v1/artists",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['LIVEART_API_KEY']}"},
    params={
        "limit": 10,
        "sort_by_total_sales": "desc",
        "is_top": True,
    },
)
resp.raise_for_status()
for artist in resp.json()["artists"]:
    print(f"{artist['name']:30s} ${artist['total_sales']:>15,}")

const res = await fetch(
  "https://api.liveart.ai/v1/artists?limit=10&sort_by_total_sales=desc&is_top=true",
  { headers: { "Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.LIVEART_API_KEY}` } }
);
const { artists } = await res.json();
artists.forEach(a => console.log(a.name, a.total_sales));

Response (truncated)

{
  "artists": [
    {
      "id": 142,
      "uid": "pablo-picasso",
      "name": "Pablo Picasso",
      "nationality": "Spanish",
      "birth": 1881,
      "death": 1973,
      "total_sales": 8214039715,
      "market_cap": 12480000000,
      "price_momentum_percentage_12mo": 7.4,
      "artworks_count": 36214
    }
  ],
  "total": 1287,
  "limit": 10,
  "offset": 0
}

Authentication

The LiveArt API uses HTTP bearer tokens. Pass your API key in the Authorization header on every request:

Authorization: Bearer la_live_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Keys are issued per organization and scoped to a plan tier (Starter / Growth / Enterprise). Treat your key like a password — never embed it in client-side code, mobile bundles, or public repositories.

Public (unauthenticated) endpoints

Two endpoints are intentionally public so you can share data without exposing your key:

• GET /v1/artworks/shared/{token} — view a shared artwork list
• GET /v1/lots/shared/{token} — view a shared lot list

See Sharing & collaboration.

Base URL & versioning

All endpoints are served from a single base host. Versioning is in the URL path; we will introduce /v2 only for breaking changes and run both versions in parallel for at least 12 months.

https://api.liveart.ai/v1/<resource>

Additive, backwards-compatible changes (new optional query parameters, new fields in responses, new enum values) may be introduced at any time. Build your clients to ignore unknown fields.

Pagination

List endpoints are paginated using a classic limit / offset pattern.

Responses include either a total (for resources where total count is known and cheap to compute) or has_more (for high-cardinality resources like /v1/lots). Use whichever the endpoint returns to drive your UI pager.

GET /v1/artworks?limit=50&offset=100   # page 3 of 50

Filtering operators

List endpoints support a rich, consistent filter grammar built from suffixes appended to field names. Combine as many as you need — they're AND'ed together.

Worked example: blue-chip post-war works coming up at Sotheby's NY

curl "https://api.liveart.ai/v1/lots?\
status=upcoming&\
sale_auction_house_id=1&\
sale_location__in=New%20York&\
hammer_price_estimate_max_usd__gte=1000000&\
creation_year__gte=1945&creation_year__lte=1980&\
sort=HAMMER_PRICE_ESTIMATE_MAX_DESC&\
limit=50" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $LIVEART_API_KEY"

Sorting

Each list endpoint accepts a sort query parameter that takes one of an enumerated set of values. The convention is FIELD_DIRECTION:

• Artworks — NAME_ASC, NAME_DESC, CREATION_YEAR_ASC, CREATION_YEAR_DESC, SALE_DATE_ASC, SALE_DATE_DESC, SIZE_ASC, SIZE_DESC
• Lots — NUMBER_ASC, NUMBER_DESC, SALE_DATE_ASC, SALE_DATE_DESC, CREATION_YEAR_ASC/DESC, HAMMER_PRICE_ESTIMATE_MIN_ASC/DESC, HAMMER_PRICE_ESTIMATE_MAX_ASC/DESC
• Sales — ID_ASC/DESC, START_DATETIME_ASC/DESC, END_DATETIME_ASC/DESC, DATE_ASC/DESC
• Artists — use sort_by_total_sales or sort_by_market_cap with values asc / desc

Currencies

All monetary fields are returned natively in the sale's source currency and normalized to USD. Pass preferred_currency on most list/detail endpoints to additionally receive values converted to a third currency of your choice using daily reference rates.

Supported values for preferred_currency:

USD · GBP · EUR · CHF · JPY · CNY · HKD · SGD · TWD · KRW · INR · AUD · CAD · NZD · NOK · RUB

The PriceSchema object on every priced resource contains parallel sets of fields:

Errors

The API uses standard HTTP status codes. Validation errors are returned with full FastAPI-style detail arrays so you can pinpoint the offending field.

Validation error example

{
  "detail": [
    {
      "loc": ["query", "limit"],
      "msg": "ensure this value is less than or equal to 100",
      "type": "value_error.number.not_le"
    }
  ]
}

Resource overview

The API exposes seven core resources. Every endpoint is documented below with its parameters, a real request, and a representative response.

Artists

Biographical and market data on the artists tracked by LiveArt — including total sales, market cap, 12-month price momentum, and a follow mechanism so you can build personalized feeds.

List artists

Get a single artist

{
  "id": 142,
  "uid": "jean-michel-basquiat",
  "name": "Jean-Michel Basquiat",
  "nationality": "American",
  "birth": 1960,
  "death": 1988,
  "bio": "American Neo-expressionist artist...",
  "total_sales": 3214000000,
  "market_cap": 5840000000,
  "max_price": 110487500,
  "price_momentum_percentage_12mo": 12.4,
  "artworks_count": 1842,
  "recent_lots_count": 37,
  "is_followed": true,
  "photo_thumbnail_url": "https://cdn.liveart.ai/..."
}

Artist price chart

{
  "resolution": "monthly",
  "unit": "index",
  "currency": "USD",
  "series": [
    {
      "id": "liveart_index",
      "label": "LiveArt Index",
      "data": [
        { "time": "2020-01-01", "value": 100.0 },
        { "time": "2020-02-01", "value": 102.4 },
        { "time": "2020-03-01", "value": 98.7 }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Related artists

Follow / unfollow

Artworks

Each artwork is a unique, deduplicated work — distinct from the lots in which copies of it appear. The artwork object carries the LiveArt Estimate™ AI price prediction, 12- and 24-month momentum, and the full canonical description.

List artworks

The most powerful endpoint in the API. Filter on more than 50 dimensions across artist, physical attributes, market state, sale context, and price.

Selected query parameters

Example: Basquiat works estimated $1M–$5M coming up in the next 90 days

curl "https://api.liveart.ai/v1/artworks?\
artist_id=142&\
last_lot_status=upcoming&\
current_estimated_price__gte=1000000&\
current_estimated_price__lte=5000000&\
date_last_upcoming__gte=2026-04-15&\
date_last_upcoming__lte=2026-07-15&\
sort=SALE_DATE_ASC&\
with_images=true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $LIVEART_API_KEY"

from datetime import date, timedelta
import os, requests

today = date.today()
params = {
    "artist_id": 142,
    "last_lot_status": "upcoming",
    "current_estimated_price__gte": 1_000_000,
    "current_estimated_price__lte": 5_000_000,
    "date_last_upcoming__gte": today.isoformat(),
    "date_last_upcoming__lte": (today + timedelta(days=90)).isoformat(),
    "sort": "SALE_DATE_ASC",
    "with_images": True,
}
r = requests.get(
    "https://api.liveart.ai/v1/artworks",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['LIVEART_API_KEY']}"},
    params=params,
)
print(f"{r.json()['total_count']} matching artworks")

Response shape

{
  "items": [
    {
      "id": 9012345,
      "uid": "jmb-untitled-1982-skull",
      "slug": "untitled-1982",
      "last_lot_status": "upcoming",
      "date_last_upcoming": "2026-05-14",
      "currency": "USD",
      "current_estimated_price": 3850000,
      "current_estimated_price_min": 3200000,
      "current_estimated_price_max": 4500000,
      "price_momentum_12mo": 0.124,
      "price_change_12mo": 421000,
      "description": { "name": "Untitled", "materials": "acrylic and oilstick on canvas", "creation_year": 1982 },
      "price": { "hammer_estimate_min_usd": 3200000, "hammer_estimate_max_usd": 4500000 }
    }
  ],
  "total_count": 7,
  "limit": 20,
  "offset": 0
}

Artwork price chart

Similar artworks

Editions

Lots

A lot is a single offering at a single sale. Many lots can point at the same underlying artwork (re-sales, multiple editions). Lot endpoints share most filters with /v1/artworks but add lot-specific fields like hammer price, premium, lot number, and sale context.

List lots

Single lot response (excerpt)

{
  "id": 81472019,
  "lot_num": "24A",
  "status": "sold",
  "auction_house_id": 1,
  "auction_house_name": "Sotheby's",
  "sale_id": 90217,
  "is_top": true,
  "reserve_mark": true,
  "third_party_mark": false,
  "price": {
    "currency": "USD",
    "hammer": 3200000,
    "hammer_estimate_min": 2500000,
    "hammer_estimate_max": 3500000,
    "premium": 3920000,
    "hammer_usd": 3200000,
    "premium_usd": 3920000
  },
  "artwork": { "id": 9012345, "name": "Untitled", "creation_year": 1982 },
  "sale":    { "id": 90217, "name": "Contemporary Evening Auction", "location": "New York" }
}

Follow lots

Sales

A sale is an auction session — typically multiple lots offered together over a single day or evening. Sale objects carry aggregate totals (hammer total, premium total, sell-through ratios) once concluded.

List sales

Sale aggregate fields

Concluded sales include rich aggregate metrics — perfect for sale-recap dashboards and benchmarking:

• cumulative_total, hammer_total, premium_sold_total — top-line totals (also _usd_zeroied and _preferred variants)
• hammer_low_estimate, hammer_high_estimate — pre-sale estimate envelope
• lots_count, lots_count_not_sold, lots_count_sold_above_estimations, _within_, _below_ — sell-through breakdown
• is_bids_streaming — whether LiveArt has a live feed of incoming bids

Auction Houses

[
  { "id": 1, "name": "Sotheby's",    "slug": "sothebys",    "priority_order": 1, "is_live": true },
  { "id": 2, "name": "Christie's",   "slug": "christies",   "priority_order": 2, "is_live": true },
  { "id": 3, "name": "Phillips",     "slug": "phillips",    "priority_order": 3, "is_live": true }
]

Categories

Sharing & collaboration

Two POST endpoints turn a private list of artworks or lots into a tokenized URL that can be viewed without authentication — ideal for sending an advisor's pre-sale recommendations to a collector.

Health check

Schemas

The API returns a small number of well-defined object types. The most important ones:

Field-level definitions for every schema are in the OpenAPI spec.

OpenAPI specification

The full machine-readable specification is published at:

https://api.liveart.ai/openapi.json

The spec is OpenAPI 3.1.0 and works out-of-the-box with code generators — Swagger Codegen, OpenAPI Generator, openapi-typescript, openapi-python-client, etc. We recommend regenerating clients on each release of your application.

Generate a typed Python client

pipx install openapi-python-client
openapi-python-client generate \
  --url https://api.liveart.ai/openapi.json \
  --meta poetry

Generate TypeScript types

npx openapi-typescript https://api.liveart.ai/openapi.json -o ./liveart.d.ts

Changelog

The API follows additive, backwards-compatible evolution within /v1. We publish a changelog with every release.

Need help?

Email api@liveart.ai for support, enterprise pricing, or questions about embedding LiveArt data in production systems.