It is easier for a pickled shark to pass through the eye of a needle than for a multimillionaire to make good art. This week it was revealed that Damien Hirst, at 40, is worth £100m, a stupendous figure unrivalled by any artist his age, ever, even allowing for inflation and the changing nature of wealth.

Andy Warhol may have been worth $228m when he died aged 59, but two decades earlier he was was spending money like water at his Factory studio. And although Salvador Dalí had already been nicknamed Avida Dollars in his 30s, his mysteriously vast fortune (the IRS never could quite fathom it) grew gradually. Hirst is richer than the two most notoriously money-obsessed modern artists at his age - will his decline be even more grotesque?