The worst possible timing blighted the leading Korean art event, KIAF (the Korean International Art Fair), which opened its doors on the “day of days”, when international financial markets were in meltdown. With the Kospi (Korean stock index) in freefall and the won plummeting, it was hardly the time to expect Koreans to buy art. What a contrast to last year, when the Korean art market was booming, Korean buyers were active in auctions in New York and three new art funds were launched. This time around, visitors to KIAF were thin on the ground and buyers even rarer. “The problem is, 80 per cent of Korean art buyers are pure speculators,” said Juhl Joohyun Lee, director of Arario gallery, “and the international situation is having a drastic effect on the Asian art markets.”

Further discouraging buyers is the fallout from the Samsung scandal. Earlier this year Korea’s golden couple, Samsung chairman Lee Kun-Hee and his wife Hong Ra-Hee were accused of using money from a $64m slush fund to buy art for the Leeum, Samsung’s art museum. Lee stepped down from his chairmanship of Samsung, and while Hong was cleared of these charges, buying by Samsung, previously one of the country’s biggest art collectors, has apparently come to a total halt.