As it turns out, the very rich did feel the pain of the global financial crisis  just not for long.

Last year, the Mei Moses Fine Art Index, which tracks changes in the price of artworks at auction, fell by 24 percent. Its subindex for postwar and contemporary art, the preferred aesthetic of rich young financiers, was down a cold 30 percent. But earlier this month, an anonymous art lover paid a record $104.3 million to scoop up “Walking Man I,” a 1960 sculpture by Alberto Giacometti.

Art, of course, is a window into the soul. It builds meaning from thin air. It measures the pulse of culture, the heartbeat of civilization. All that. But it also is a neat indicator of the unique economics that govern the lives of the Masters of the Universe who buy it.

Works of art are among those peculiar commodities whose appeal grow as their prices rise. They are Veblen goods, named after Thorstein Veblen, the economist who posited that conspicuous consumption has an inherent purpose as a signal of status. They work a little like that short-lived “I Am Rich” iPhone application, which for $999 flashed the picture of a red gem.