The art market has bounced back worldwide after prices slumped by more than 10 percent last year as investors look for a safer alternative to falling stock markets, the leading index Artprice said Friday.

Chinese collectors had driven rocketing prices over the past few years that peaked in May 2015 when Picasso's masterpiece the "The Women of Algiers (Version 0)" sold for a $179 million (162 million euros), the highest price ever paid for a work of art.

Sales later cooled off sharply due to a "readjustment of the Chinese market", Artprice said, with the global total for the year falling nearly $2 billion short of 2014's high of $17.9 billion.

But the world's leading art auction database said figures for the first two months of this year show a strong recovery.