This book gives a comprehensive account of the history and underlying economics of the modern art market in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain.
Introduction; Chapter 1 The Early Stages: From the Netherlands to Great Britain; Chapter 2 The Commoditization of Theories of Art; Chapter 3 The Painter as Homo Economicus; Chapter 4 Critics and Auctions; Chapter 5 The Evolution of Picture-Dealing; Chapter 6 The Victorian Era; Chapter 7 ‘Working the Oracle’: The Tools of the Trade; Chapter 8 The Formation of a Nexus: A Story of Christie’s; Chapter 9 Commoditization and the Artist as Producer: Product Differentiation and the Domestication of Pictures; Chapter 10 The End of the ‘Golden Age’; Chapter 11 Postscript: A Perpetual Innovative Whirl;
