Studies in the History of Collecting & Art Markets – serie

Based on Guilliam Forchondt’s surviving business documentation in Antwerp and applying an aggregate and data-driven approach, Connecting Art Markets focuses on the role of art dealers in mediating the supply and demand for art, behaving in particular ways as to influence the markets for artworks in which they were strategically invested. Van Ginhoven presents her findings on Guilliam Forchondt’s workshop production volumes and transatlantic art trade flows, and evaluates the relationship between the production of paintings in the Southern Netherlands, their local, regional and overseas distribution channels, and the markets for these works in Europe and the Americas during the seventeenth century.

Dealing Art on Both Sides of the Atlantic, 1860-1940 aims to bring the marketplace dynamic into sharper focus with its essays which examine the many functionaries who participate in the art market network, among them, agents, scouts, intermediaries, restorers, fakers, decorators, advisers and experts. All of the essays are rooted in case studies which give voice to the various aspects of supply−from branding to marketing, from inventory to display, from restoration to pastiche to fabrication. Each is incredibly rich in their marshalling of primary sources and archival materials; in sum, they present an impressive array of new research.Contributors are: Fae Brauer, Denise M. Budd, Patrizia Cappellini, Lynn Catterson, Sebastien Chaffour, Laura D. Corey, Flaminia Gennari-Santori, Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, Joanna Smalcerz, Alexandra Provo, AnnaLea Tunesi, and Leanne Zalewski.

Seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings were aesthetic, intellectual, and economic touchstones in the Parisian art world of the Revolutionary era, but their importance within this framework, while frequently acknowledged, never attracted much subsequent attention. Darius A. Spieths inquiry into Revolutionary Paris and the Market for Netherlandish Art reveals the dominance of Golden Age pictures in the artistic discourse and sales transactions before, during, and after the French Revolution. A broadly based statistical investigation, undertaken as part of this study, shows that the upheaval reduced prices for Netherlandish paintings by about 55% compared to the Old Regime, and that it took until after the July Revolution of 1830 for art prices to return where they stood before 1789.

Working with a data set accounting for 13,000 auction sales results, Anne-Sophie V. Radermecker explores what contemporary buyers value when purchasing paintings of unknown or uncertain authorship, and which variables influence price formation mechanisms in this market segment. The principle finding of this book is not only that historical names matter in the art market, but so do all other alternative identification strategies that art market players use to label anonymous paintings. Indirect names, provisional names, and spatiotemporal designations function as substitutes for real names that simulate identities, create ex-post stories around the artworks offered for sale, and, consequently, reduce information asymmetry about an artist’s identity, with, at time, quite unexpected effects on price.

Through case studies of collectors, patrons, and agents who redefined collecting and the art market, this volume illuminates how the changing status of the artist, rise of connoisseurship, role of intermediaries and new patterns of consumption established models for collecting and display that resemble those still practiced today. The book presents new research by recognized scholars who examine the motivations of collectors and agents, emphasizing how their collecting, patronage and advocacy could require support of artists whose reputations were not fully established. Together, the essays invite consideration of works that are familiar in art-historical terms but less so as markers of the socio-economic shifts of a particular cultural moment. This book evolved from a symposium “When Michelangelo was Modern: The Art Market and Collecting in Italy, 1450–1650,” organized by the Center for the History of Collecting, that was held at The Frick Collection on April 12 and 13, 2019. Both the book and the symposium were made possible through the generous support of the Robert H. Smith Family Foundation.The book is published in association with The Frick Collection.

Foreign Currency Volatility and the Market for French Modernist Art examines how the collapse of the French franc in the decades following the First World War activated powerful ‘push’ and ‘pull’ economic forces that compelled French art collectors to monetise their collections while simultaneously elevating the purchasing power of international art collectors. These factors are shown to have played a significant, and previously under-recognised role, in the large-scale translocation of French modernist art that radically accelerated its commercial and critical reception across the globe and positioned it at the apex of the newly established hierarchy of modern art.

Chinese Contemporary Art in the Global Auction Market examines the rapid rise of the global market for Chinese Contemporary art across the turn of the millennium. Focusing on key auction events, it traces the systematic and strategic role played by auction houses in promoting the work of ‘avant-garde’ Chinese artists, transforming them into multi-million-dollar global art superstars. Anita Archer’s research into this emerging art market reveals a powerful global network of collectors, curators, dealers and auction house specialists whose understanding of the mechanics of value formation in the global art world consolidated a framework for the promotion of Chinese Contemporary art to a Western audience.

In Spaces of Connoisseurship, Alison Clarke explores the ‘who’, ‘where’ and ‘how’ of judging Old Master paintings in the nineteenth-century British art trade. She describes how the staff at family art dealers Thomas Agnew & Sons (“Agnew’s”) and London’s National Gallery took advantage of emerging technologies such as the railways and photography. Through encounters with pictures in a range of locations, both private and public, these art market actors could build up the visual memory and necessary expertise to compare artworks and judge them in terms of attribution, condition and beauty. Also explored are the display tactics adopted by both commercial outfit and art museum to showcase pictures once acquired. In a time of ever-spiralling art prices, this book tackles the question of why some paintings are preferred over others, and exactly how art experts reach their judgements.

The professional career and success of Wilhelm Bode (1845-1929) relied on the business of connoisseurship. Like other contemporary art historians involved in the commerce of art, he was entangled in the reciprocal dynamics and interdependencies of the nascent discipline of art history, connoisseurship and the art trade. The volume introduces new material and a fresh perspective on Bode’s strategic participation in the Western art market, exposing the particular consequences of these entanglements on the birth of the art historical canon and showcasing his complex agency within the art marketplace of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries.

This is the first thorough investigation of the Brummer brothers’ remarkable career as dealers in antiques, curiosities and modernism in Paris and New York over six decades (1906-1964). A dozen specialists aggregate their expertise to explore extant dealer records and museum archives, parse the wide-ranging Brummer stock, and assess how objects were sourced, marketed, labelled, restored, and displayed. The research provides insights into emerging collecting fields as they crystallised, at the crossroads between market and museum. It questions the trope of the tastemaker; the translocation of material culture, and the dealers’ prolific relationships with illustrious collectors, curators, scholars, artists, and fellow dealers.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Italian Renaissance art, objects, and even the idea of Italy itself figured heavily both in the dynamic international art market and in the eyes of the general public. The alternative objects that were actively dispersed and collected -- authentic works, pastiches, Renaissance-inspired counterfeits, and reproductions -- in the diverse media of paint, plaster, terracotta, and photography, had a tremendous impact on visual culture across social strata. These essays examine less studied aspects of this market through the lens of just a few of the countless successful sales of objects out of Italy.

This book examines the art markets of the Global South while questioning, based on the heterogeneity of the selected contributions, the very idea of its existence in the context of the global art market. Gathering new research by recognized scholars, you will discover different markets from the so-called Global South, their structure, the external determinants affecting their behavior, their role in the art system’s development, and how they articulate with other agents at the local, regional, and international level. In this publication, an important wealth of research on various African countries stands out, providing an unprecedented overview of the markets in that region.This volume originates from the TIAMSA conference The Art Market and the Global South: New Perspectives and Plural Approaches, held in Lisbon in 2019.

This volume explores twelve house museums, created over more than two centuries, and founded across the globe. What motivates collectors to establish independent house museums instead of donating their collections to preexisting institutions? How have collectors’ original intentions manifested themselves in their museums? Have founder mandates aided the survival or caused the demise of their institutions? How have house museums’ collections or buildings evolved over time? Must museums reinterpret their collections to remain relevant to contemporary and diverse audiences? In seeking to answer these questions, the volume’s authors share the unique stories behind the creation and evolution of these fascinating institutions, and the intriguing stories of the exceptional individuals who founded them.Contributors: Aistė Bimbirytė, Eliza Butler, Chih-En Chen, Enrico Colle, Allegra Davis, Marissa Hershon, Mia Laufer, Ulrike Müller, Nadine Nour el Din, Inge Reist, Anne Nellis Richter, and Georgina S. Walker.

Chronicling Lost Legacies enhances our understanding of the evolution of artistic taste and cultural heritage institutions within the U.S., highlighting historical narratives of women art collectors and patrons. Organized chronologically and thematically, it covers figures from colonial times to the twentieth century, concluding with insights from feminist historian Laura R. Prieto. The volume illuminates the lives of lesser-known and iconic influential women such as Florence Sloane and Abby Rockefeller, challenging male-dominated narratives and showcasing female agency, resilience, and collecting practices. Ideal for scholars and art enthusiasts, it offers a timely reexamination of the forces that have shaped our cultural institutions.