Art Markets, Agents and Collectors: Collecting Strategies in Europe and the United States, 1550-1950

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Description

Art Markets, Agents and Collectors brings together a wide variety of case studies, based on letters and detailed archival research, which nuance the history of the art market and the role of the collector within it. Using diaries, account books and other archival sources, the chapters in this volume show how agents set up networks and acquired works of art, often developing the taste and knowledge of the collectors for whom they were working. They are therefore seen as important actors in the market, having a specific role that separates them from auctioneers, dealers, museum curators or amateurs, while at the same time acknowledging and analysing the dual positions that many held. Each chronological period is introduced by a contextual essay, written by a leading expert in the field, which sets out the art market in the period concerned and the ways in which agents functioned. This book is an invaluable tool for those needing an accessible yet broad introduction to the intricate workings of the art market.

Reviews

All historians with a serious interest in how works of art were sourced, commended, valued and purchased in Europe and North America between the mid-16th and the mid-20th centuries will find much of interest and much that will surprise them among the profile portraits and succinct case histories in this volume. These include a connoisseur whose omissions from his doggerel survey of Venetian art still perplex us, the croney of a dissolute prince for whom the competition in the salerooms had something of the appeal of the gambling tables, a scholar and painter striving to become a museum director, a poet and his wife devising flagrant publicity stunts to promote a surrealist painter, and an Anglican Bishop helping to export grave goods excavated by railway construction in China. Introductory essays not only review what has been achieved but what remains to be investigated and what methodological equipment will be required in this relatively young and rapidly growing branch of academic research. * Nicholas Penny, Director of the National Gallery (2008-15), UK *
Building on incremental advances made in recent years, this volume represents a coming of age for the integrated study of the mechanisms of the art market. Privileging neither producers, consumers, agents nor production centres, it captures the essentials of their intricate and inseparable interdependence. * Arthur MacGregor, former senior curator at the Ashmolean Museum, UK *
The broad coverage of this ambitious book reveals compelling cross currents and dialogues across time and contexts. As they define how agents, both individuals and institutions, operate both formally and informally in spurring the circulation and acquisition of art, the essays offer a wide view of the current scholarship and methods related to the art market. * Emily C. Burns, Associate Professor of Art History, Auburn University, USA *

Author Bio

Susan Bracken is Associate Lecturer, Department of History of Art, Birkbeck University of London, UK. Adriana Turpin is Academic Director and Head of Research, Institut dEtudes Suprieures des Arts, Paris, France.