Calculating the annual return for a painting

Well, this was inevitable.

Slate highlights the Mei Moses Fine Art Index, compiled by two professors at New York University's Stern School of Business to track the long-term performance of fine art.

Over the last 50 years, stocks (as represented by the S&P 500) returned 10.9 percent annually, while the art index returned 10.5 percent per annum. And in the five years between 2001 and 2005, art trounced stocks.