The essentials, in four sentences
- Your bid is an offer to buy, addressed to the seller. It is not a contract of sale and it
does not oblige the seller to sell you the artwork.
- You are never charged anything here. ArtBidHere neither processes, holds nor claims money
for artworks.
- This is not a public auction. There is no auctioneer and no award: the seller collects
offers and decides.
- If your offer is the highest at close, you receive the seller's details and **one hour of
priority** to complete the purchase directly with them.
Who is who
ArtBidHere is a trade name of Luyten Gallery, S.L. (Spanish tax number B21619937), which provides the software and is not a party to the sale.
The seller is the gallery or artist who publishes the artwork. They are who sells to you, who answers for the work, and who issues an invoice where applicable. Their name appears on the label beside the artwork and on the page you open by scanning the code or following the link they shared.
What happens when you bid
1. You enter your offer, your email address and a phone number the seller can reach you on. All three are required. We do not ask for your name. We do not verify the phone number — we never send SMS — so check it is typed correctly: it is the number the seller will see. 2. We send you a six-digit code and you type it on the same page. It proves the address is yours. We never send a link that places the offer for you. 3. If your offer meets or beats the minimum next bid at that moment, it is recorded. If somebody got ahead of you while you were confirming, we tell you the new minimum and you can bid again. 4. The seller of that artwork sees your email address and your phone number from the moment your offer is recorded, not only at the close. You are making an offer to buy from a gallery or an artist: the person receiving it knows who it is from. None of this is public: your address never appears on the artwork's page and is never given to another bidder. 5. We email you if somebody outbids you, and when bidding closes. The outbid notice is the only one you can switch off, from your bidder page.
A recorded offer cannot be withdrawn or changed. It can only be beaten by a higher one. Think before you confirm.
The closing time
Each artwork has its own closing time, fixed at the moment the seller opens bidding. That time never changes, not even if the seller pauses bidding. The clock that decides is the server's.
If a seller pauses an artwork, it stops taking new offers, the existing ones stand, and the clock keeps running.
The only way an artwork closes earlier is that somebody offers its close-now price, if the seller set one (explained below).
If the artwork has a close-now price
Besides the starting bid, the seller may set a close-now price. While it is available, the artwork's page shows it under the bid button. If you offer exactly that amount, you make an offer to buy like any other — with the same email, the same phone number and the same code — and the artwork closes at that very moment, with your offer as the highest. You receive the seller's contact details and the same hour of priority you would have had if the artwork had closed on time, on the same terms: it is not a purchase or a reservation of the artwork, and nothing is paid here.
That price stops being available, and does not come back in that round, once the leading offer reaches 75% of it or the next minimum bid exceeds it, even if the seller later voids an offer. It is not accepted while the artwork is paused, if the seller has removed it, or if somebody else offered it before you: the order in which the server confirms offers decides. If it is no longer available when you confirm, your offer is not recorded and we tell you the next minimum bid; we never turn it into an ordinary bid for you.
If you type an amount equal to or above that price as an ordinary bid, it is recorded as an ordinary bid and the artwork stays open until its closing time.
An offer at the close-now price, like any other, cannot be withdrawn or changed. If the artwork closes early this way, everybody who had bid receives an email saying so.
If your offer is the highest
At close you receive the seller's name and contact details by email, and you have one hour of priority to deal with them directly. That hour runs from the moment we send you that email, not from the closing time, so a delay in notifying you can never shorten it.
That hour is a preferential contact window, not a purchase and not a reservation of the artwork. Price, invoice, payment, shipping and delivery are agreed between you and the seller, outside this platform. ArtBidHere does not take part, does not guarantee that a sale happens, and is not answerable for its outcome.
After that hour, if you have not reached an agreement, the seller may approach other bidders.
If the seller withdraws the artwork
A seller may withdraw an artwork before close — for instance if they sell it at the fair itself or lose the right to sell it. All offers are then void, we email you, and nothing further happens. Since you were never charged, there is nothing to refund.
If the seller voids your offer
A seller may void one particular offer before close when it is plainly false or mistaken: an absurd amount that leaves the bidding blocked for everybody else, or an offer whoever made it says was a mistake.
If that happens we always email you — an offer is never voided silently — your offer stops counting, the bidding continues from the next highest, and that artwork will take no further offers from you in that bidding. You were never charged anything, so there is nothing to refund.
Voiding deletes nothing: your offer, its amount and the moment it was made all remain on record. If you think it was a mistake, write to us and we will look at it.
What we do and do not guarantee
ArtBidHere guarantees that the mechanism works as described here: that a valid offer is recorded, that the highest at close is the one that wins, and that you receive the notifications.
We guarantee nothing about the artwork. Not its authenticity, its condition, its provenance, nor that the seller has the right to sell it. That is the seller's responsibility, and questions about the work belong to them — which is why we publish their contact details before you bid, and not only afterwards.
None of the above excludes liability that the law does not permit to be excluded.
Your data
We process your email, your phone number, and the amount and time of your offers. The seller of each artwork receives your email and phone number from the moment your offer is recorded: that is the purpose of the service. You can change the phone number at any time from "My details" on the artwork's page, and see every offer you have made on your bidder page. We keep them for as long as the seller's account exists, because an art sale can take months to close and the introduction has to still be there when it does. Ask us and we erase them, within 30 days, at any time and without giving a reason.
The detail is in the Privacy policy.
Age
You must be 18 or over to bid.
Governing law and complaints
These terms are governed by Spanish law. If you are a consumer you keep every right consumer law gives you and may bring proceedings before the courts of your own domicile.
For any complaint about how the service works, use the contact form. We answer in writing. Complaints about the artwork or the sale are for the seller.