Enfilade

From The National Gallery:

London and the Emergence of a European Art Market, c.1780–1820
The National Gallery, London,  21-22 June 2013

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The French Revolution and the ensuing Napoleonic Wars instigated a sweeping redistribution of art throughout Europe. Large volumes of valuable objects – often entire collections, from monasteries, churches, and palaces – were widely dispersed via auction and private treaty sales. Networks of agents provided the infrastructure for the circulation of art works and sales information across borders, which promoted a flourishing international art market.

This two-day conference seeks to examine the role of London in this developing market by shedding new light on the mechanisms of the art trade that connected major European centres around 1800. Scholars from a range of disciplines and countries will discuss broad research questions such as:

• Did the long-term effects of the political turmoil in France alter the existing networks of dealers and connoisseurs?
• What would have been the motivations to ship art works to distant cities?
• How sophisticated was the auction catalogue as economic tool and literary genre in various countries?
• Is it really possible to talk about a European art market or were there still relatively independent local markets?

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F R I D A Y ,  2 1  J U N E  2 0 1 3

10.00  Registration

10.30  Nicholas Penny (The National Gallery), Welcome and introduction

10.35  Christian Huemer (Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles) and Maximilian Schich (University of Texas, Dallas), What’s in the data? Visualising the Getty Provenance Index®

Session 1: Collections
Moderator: Adriana Turpin (Institut d’Etudes Supérieures des Arts / University of Warwick)

11.00  Camilla Murgia (Université de Neuchâtel), Collecting patterns for London: From private museums to commercial art galleries

11.25  Break with refreshments

11.45  Wendy Wassyng Roworth (University of Rhode Island), Angelica Kauffman: The acquisition and dispersal of an artist’s collection, 1782–1825

12.10  Elodie Goëssant (Université Paris-Sorbonne IV), A surprising art auction: The George Watson-Taylor sale in 1823

12.35  Discussion

1.00  Lunch break

Session 2: Agents
Moderator: Gail Feigenbaum (Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles)

2.00  Julia Armstrong-Totten (Independent Scholar, Los Angeles), From jack-of-all-trades to professional: The development of the early modern picture dealer in 18th-century London

2.25  Sarah Bakkali (Université Paris X Nanterre), The Trumbull sale of 1797: Players in the Paris-London art market during the French Revolution

2.50  Carole Blumenfeld (Palais Fesch-Musée des Beaux-arts d’Ajaccio), Pierre-Joseph Lafontaine (1758-1835) and the formation of European private collections

3.15  Break with refreshments

3.45  Maria Celeste Cola (Sapienza Università di Roma), Thomas Hope and Gioacchino Marini: Roman agent ‘de’ signori inglesi’

4.10  Ana Maria García Fernández (Universidad de Oviedo), Spanish art dealers in the United Kingdom

4.35  Discussion

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S A T U R D A Y ,  2 2  J U N E  2 0 1 3

10.00  Registration

10.30  Thomas W. Gaehtgens (Getty Research Institute), Welcome and introduction

Session 3: Information
Moderator: Hans Van Miegroet (Duke University)

10.35  David Ekserdjian (University of Leicester), William Buchanan’s Memoirs of Painting (1824) and his observations on the art trade during the Napoleonic period

11.00  Bénédicte Miyamoto (Université Paris Sorbonne-Nouvelle), British buying patterns at auction sales, 1780–1800: Did the influx of European art have an impact on the British public’s preferences?

11.25  Break with refreshments

11.45  Steven Adams (University of Hertfordshire), ‘Noising things abroad’: Sales catalogues and the construction of value in the early 19th-century art market

12.10  Rebecca Lyons (Christie’s Education, London / University of Glasgow), Marketing and selling the collection of Welbore Ellis Agar in 1806

12.35  Discussion

1.00  Lunch break

Session 4: Artworks
Moderator: Susanna Avery-Quash (The National Gallery)

2.00  Hans Van Miegroet (Duke University) and Dries Lyna (Radboud University Nijmegen), International art dealer networks and triangular arbitrage between Paris, Amsterdam and London

2.25  Guido Guerzoni (Università Luigi Bocconi, Milan), Italian exports of works of art to the United Kingdom

2.50  Peter Carpreau (M – Museum Leuven), The Getty Provenance Index® under examination: The taste for 17th-century Dutch and Flemish painting in London (1780–1820)

3.15  Break with refreshments

3.45  Olivier Bonfait (Université de Bourgogne, Dijon), London around 1800: An international art trade or a globalised art market?

4.10  Discussion

4.30  Roundtable
Moderator: Nicholas Penny (The National Gallery)
Thomas W. Gaehtgens (Getty Research Institute)
Guido Guerzoni (Università Luigi Bocconi, Milan)
Patrick Michel (Université Lille 3)
Michael North (Universität Greifswald)