Abstract

In 2012, Qatar’s royal family bought one of five Paul Cezanne paintings titled The Card Players for approximately $250 million. By way of contrast, a 160-acre plot of hardwood forest in Forest County Wisconsin is now for sale for $250,000. The painting is roughly three feet high by four feet wide. The 160-acre forest is 880 square yards or twice the size of the area around Walden Pond that so inspired Henry David Thoreau and twice the size of Aldo Leopold’s Sauk County farm. The painting sold for a price one thousand times that of the forest. The forest is approximately 500,000 times larger than the painting. Many factors other than aesthetic ones affect the price of both paintings and forests; nonetheless, the...