The lock-down has delivered a heavy blow to the way that art is usually enjoyed and consumed. Global sales were already down for the year but as tends a crisis, necessity is the mother of invention and some parts of the market are reaping virtual rewards.

Auction houses Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Phillips, Bonhams all closed down their physical spaces in March but early reports suggest that online buying from high end to mass market has been energized in the lockdown and is attracting first-time entrants.

Artfinder reported its best sales month in April since launching the online marketplace seven years ago, both in total pieces sold and in values. Compared with April last year, the site reported a 110 per cent increase in new customers, with an artwork selling roughly every 12 minutes.

Backed by the same venture capital houses behind businesses such as Spotify and Zoopla, the company became the art market’s first B Corp last year, based on the notion of affordable and accessible art for buyers and a decent living for artists. The site features around 8,000 artists and galleries that cover painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, drawing and collage, with around 450,000 subscribers.

“From art fair and gallery closures to not being able to shop for some essential art supplies, this crisis has been unprecedented in its reach,” CEO Michal Szczesny said, adding that venues like his are "enabling the art market to continue operating" in the pandemic.

With physical spaces off-limits, big institutions to smaller galleries have taken the-show-must-go-on approach, with online tours, virtual openings and private viewing rooms rapidly replacing footfall and scheduled events. More art will no doubt be changing hands privately as happened during the 2008 financial crisis. Whether this reinvention translates into a sustainable future is less certain.

A survey by The Art Newspaper of 236 galleries worldwide in April showed revenues on average collapsing by 72 per cent and some regional galleries admitting to being crippled by the lockdown.

May is also a pivotal month for capturing momentum from big fairs such as Frieze New York, which generated $1.7 billion in sales last year in just a few days of the event. Deutsche Bank, global lead partner, announced the first-ever virtual gathering this year in leiu of the extravaganza that normally takes over New York Randall’s Island at this time. The virtual replacement, running until Friday this week, offers 200 virtual galleries, where buyers can even test the much-hyped augmented reality technology to place pieces in their home setting.

"When we knew there could no longer be a physical event for Frieze New York, we were inspired to seize this difficult moment to create a new way of interacting with our clients and making a positive impact through art,” said Claudio de Sanctis, global head of Deutsche Bank Wealth Management.

Art is a commodity that has been asserting itself as an asset class but one which carries emotional resonance and gallery owners rely on a global circuit of blue-chip events to sell, to be seen and scout for new talent. Haute couture operates in much the same way through theatrically staged Fashion Weeks that pull in the A-list crowd. In this respect Zoom chats and virtual tours are no substitute.

With lockdown easing in Germany, Berlin has taken tentative steps in opening up the Barberini museum and the Brandenberg State modern art museum, with clear markers inside and out for observing social distancing. The new rules are arguably a bonus for those who have ever felt rammed in at the more popular openings. But lack of footfall has been devastating. The Royal Academy is reportedly losing around £1 million a month while its doors are closed.

Sotheby’s said it plans to re-open selected offices in Europe and Asia in June, and confirmed that its Hong Kong spring sale would go ahead as planned between 5 and 11 July. Its flagship offices in New York and London are also preparing to resume some activity in June subject to government easing. The term re-opening has been "somewhat misleading," CEO Charles Stewart said in an email last week. "Since March, we have held 37 online auctions that totalled nearly $70 million."

The company furloughed more than 10 per cent of its staff in April, the same month its ‘contemporary curated’ auction broke all records, taking $6.4 million, the biggest haul for a London edition, live or online. But this should be seen in the context of the total market.

Global sales of art and antiques reached $64 billion in 2019, down by 5 per cent for the year, and online sales made up less than 10 per cent of that at around $6 billion, according to the Art Basel report issued annually in partnership with UBS. For those dealers who sold online last year, more than half did so to new buyers, which is a promising sign for those who want to democratise the market. That said, 45 per cent of dealers' annual sales were made at physical fairs last year. It will be interesting to see what numbers come out of the virtual New York Frieze as this hastened migration online is undoubtedly bringing in many more first-time buyers.

Christian Morrow, who runs the blue-chip art investment platform ArtCels, said that after "the initial incredible disruption” of the shutdown came “an equally immediate and incredible transition into exhibiting online.”

Morrow, who operates galleries in London’s Mayfair, Beverly Hills in Los Angeles, and a space on the island of Mykonos, said that after the first shock and halt in activity, the pandemic has been a plus for amplifying art to a global audience; he has been getting enquiries from Zurich to Nashville from first-time customers.

In a call last week, Morrow acknowledged that a market without the big fairs, exclusive early-bird previews and the sheer energy of buying at a live auction, where prices are often driven up, is taking its toll.

“If you are an artist communicating for the first time on an online platform you are not going to resonate as well as if you’ve been on the circuit for a few years and people are physically familiar with your work.” In that respect, the lockdown has been tougher on new artists than established ones, he said. “But overall, there are more positives than negatives at the moment.” The last month has been a record one for the business, he said.

Morrow believes that the high-resolution 4k cameras now rendering artwork in exceptional 3-D quality, and the efforts going into augmenting online sales platforms will only improve the market, particularly for contemporary artists that have social appeal. These include graffiti artists like Banksy, China’s Zhuang Hong Yi and the surrealist style of George Condo whose painting broke online sales records at Sotheby’s last month. These are the blue-chip names attracting digital audiences and buyers, he said.