Well I think that identifying artists with the capacity to create masterpieces will be a talent that patrons will already have, otherwise how would they know how to spend their money? It’s definitely not random guessing. I think there’s way too many choices of artists available for randomness to work. If that talent isn’t there, then the quality of the collection will not impress anyone. Likewise, a talented indie record label has to identify gifted bands and back them, and that music will impress, or not. For visual artists I think single patrons are necessary for unique works of art, so you would need a lot of single patrons to do the heavy lifting for lots of artists.
Discussion
I would argue that there are just as many failed collectors/patrons as there are failed artists, and that patrons have to just as gifted at choosing artists to support as artists have to be gifted at creating art.
Yes, and like you said earlier it’s not just a matter of assessing the art, a good patron would have to be able to asses the artist as well.