A major art and antiques dealer in London was placed into administration this week. Partridge Fine Art has been in business over 100 years. It was set up in 1902 to buy antiques for Queen Mary and sold to private clients and designers as well as institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum and the J Paul Getty Museum. The Allied Irish Bank is the main creditor to the company. Andrew Stoneman and Matt Bond, partners in MCR, have been appointed joint administrators and business is going on as usual at the dealership's posh four-story townhouse on Bond Street. Princess Michael of Kent is the firm's president but it is unknown as of yet if she will stay on the payroll.

It is suspected that the economy is the culprit as usual but no official reason has been given. The administrators are focusing on saving the business hope to sell it as a thriving company preserving both the history of the firm and the jobs of the people who work there. The company was owned by the Partridge family until 2005 when it was sold to Amor Holdings for around £14 million. Design firm Candy & Candy is said to have expressed interest in buying the company in the past but may not be interested anymore.

If you put any faith in conventional wisdom, the best time to invest is when the market is at the bottom. So, there's no time like the present to put some cash into the fine art asset class. Hey, what passes for a solid performance these days is more than 70 percent off last year's levels. Before you invest anywhere, it pays (sometimes literally) to do your homework, and this is especially true with the art market. A fourth grade math education equips you to watch a stock prices ups and downs – and it is supplemented by what we pick up on the nightly news and (I hope) on the likes of BloggingStocks and DailyFinance.

Art, however, is different.

To understand this market, you're staring down the task of learning thousands of years of product history, in addition to a relatively illiquid marketplace in which prevailing tastes play a major role. You can carve this mammoth amount of information into smaller pieces, but you still need to identify a starting place. It's easy to get intimidated ... and also unnecessary. Take a look at the 10 tips below to make the art market a bit more accessible.

1. Take a recreational interest in art
If you're going to commit several thousand dollars to an art investment, you really ought to be interested in it. Start by going to museums, just to get a sense of the breadth available to you ... and to decide what you like. Some of the most attractive pieces may be way out of your price range. I love Francis Bacon's work, but there's no way it will grace my walls anytime soon, not even with the help of the current art market slump. But, you can use the masters to get a sense of the styles that turn you on, which you can use to choose pieces that are closer to your price range.

2. Know where to find insights
Okay, my bias toward Luxist's art market reporting is pretty obvious, but the articles here can help you get started. Also, check out art market publications like ArtInfo, ArtPrice and Art Market Blog. Bloomberg also provides solid art market coverage. Once you have the basics nailed down, spend some time on the auction house websites, like Sotheby's and Christie's. Get a feel for how the marketplace operates.