Art Market And Connoisseurship A Closer Look At Paintings By Rembrandt Rubens And Their Contemporaries

The question of whether seventeenth-century painters such as Rembrandt and Rubens were exclusively responsible for the paintings later sold under their names has caused many a heated debate. Despite the rise of scholarship on the history of the art market, much is still unknown about the ways in which paintings were produced, assessed, priced, and marketed during this period, which leads to several provocative questions: did contemporary connoisseurs expect masters such as Rembrandt to paint works entirely by their own hand? Who was credited with the ability to assess paintings as genuine? The contributors to this engaging collection—Eric Jan Sluijter, Hans Van Miegroet, and Neil De Marchi, among them—trace these issues through the booming art market of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, arriving at fascinating and occasionally unexpected conclusions.

This essential volume traces the evolution of connoisseurship in the booming art market of the seventeenth- and eighteenth centuries. Not to be missed by anyone with an interest in the Old Masters and the early modern art market.

Attributing old master paintings is one of the most difficult tasks of the art historian. While authorship has important implications for the field of art history and for valuation, little has been written on the theory and techniques of the connoisseur's work. This volume analyzes the role of the expert's intuition along with efforts to develop scientific techniques. The author focuses on the challenges of attributing seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art, then turns to investigating connoisseurship, arguing that to evaluate authenticity, it is necessary to understand what it meant when the paintings were created. Further discussions probe the understanding of an “original” versus a “copy” at a time when painters routinely produced multiple versions of a work; the meaning of “by the master's hand” when paintings were often produced with the help of assistants; and the significance of style when artists intentionally varied theirs depending on the subject matter or the audience.

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.

Lotteries, Art Markets, and Visual Culture examines lotteries as devices for distributing images and art objects, and constructing their value in the former Low Countries. Alongside the fairs and before specialist auction sales were established, they were an atypical but popular and large-scale form of the art trade. As part of a growing entrepreneurial sensibility based on speculation and a sense of risk, they lay behind many innovations. This study looks at their actors, networks and strategies. It considers the objects at stake, their value, and the forms of visual communication intended to boost an appetite for ownership. Ultimately, it contemplates how the lottery culture impacted notions of Fortune and Vanitas in the visual arts.

Painting Flanders Abroad: Flemish Art and Artists in Seventeenth-Century Madrid traces how Flemish immigrant painters and imported Flemish paintings fundamentally transformed the development of Spanish taste, collecting, and art production in the Spanish “Golden Age.”

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 contributions to 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 analyzing 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 a broader introduction to the intricate workings of the art market.

Art Crossing Borders offers a thought-provoking analysis of the internationalisation of the art market during the long nineteenth century. Twelve experts, dealing with a wide variety of geographical, temporal, and commercial contexts, explore how the gradual integration of art markets structurally depended on the simultaneous rise of nationalist modes of thinking, in unexpected and ambiguous ways. By presenting a radically international research perspective Art Crossing Borders offers a crucial contribution to the field of art market studies.

A radical re-examination of 2,500 years of European art, deconstructing and demystifying its long history from ancient to present How has art evolved from the pursuit of the 'ideal' human form to a black square on a white canvas? Why is a banana duct-taped to a wall worth more on the art market than a beautiful seventeenth-century landscape? By taking art for what it actually is -- a piece of stone or wood, a sheet of paper with some lines drawn on it, a painted canvas -- this lively and accessible account shows how seemingly meaningless objects can be transformed into celebrated works of art. Breaking with conventional notions of artistic genius, Koenraad Jonckheere explores how stories and emotions give meaning to objects, and why changing historical circumstances result in such shifting opinions over time. Tracing its story from ancient times to present, A New History of Western Art reframes the evolution of European art and radically reshapes our understanding of art history. Published in association with Hannibal Books

Venetian artistic giants of the sixteenth century, such as Giorgione, Vittore Carpaccio, Titian, Jacopo Sansovino, Jacopo Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, and their contemporaries, continued to shape artistic development, tastes in collecting, and modes of display long after their own practices ended. The robust reverberation of the Venetian Renaissance spread far beyond the borders of the lagoon to inform and influence artists, authors, and collectors who spent very little or even no time in Venice proper. The Enduring Legacy of Venetian Renaissance Art investigates the historical resonance of Venetian sixteenth-century art and explores its afterlife and its reinvention by artists working in its shadow. Despite being a frequently acknowledged truism, the pervasive legacy of Venetian sixteenth-century art has not received comprehensive treatment in recent publication history. The broad scope of the topics covered in these essays, from Titian's profound influence on the development of landscape painting to the effects of Carpaccio's historical paintings on early twentieth-century fashion, illustrates the persistence and adaptability of the Venetian Renaissance's legacy. In addition to analyzing the effects of individual artists on each other, this volume offers insight into the shifting characterizations and reception of Venice as a center for artistic innovation and inspiration throughout the early modern period, providing a nuanced and multifaceted view of the singular lagoon city and its indelible imprint on the history of art.