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Using a unique hand-collected dataset, comprising all artwork sales in Italy between 2006 and 2010, we test Rosen’s and Adler’s hypotheses in the modern and contemporary visual art market. We extract our measures of artist talent and fame from a set of observable artist-specific variables by means of a factor analysis and estimate the elasticities of income with respect to talent and fame. Consistent with Rosen’s and Adler’s hypotheses, our results suggest a convex relationship between income and talent and a linear relationship between income and fame. Using SUR models to evaluate the effects of artist talent and fame on the average trade prices and number of sales, we find that the number of artwork sales is the main ‘channel’ through which talent and fame influence income. Copula models provide additional insights on the nature of the conditional dependence relationship between average prices …