Enfilade

From Bloomsbury:

Adriana Turpin and Susan Bracken, eds., Art Markets, Agents, and Collectors: Collecting Strategies in Europe and the United States, 1550–1950 (London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2021), 400 pages, ISBN: 978-1501348877, $160.

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.

Adriana Turpin is Academic Director and Head of Research, Institut d’Etudes Supérieures des Arts, Paris.

Susan Bracken is Associate Lecturer, Department of History of Art, Birkbeck University of London.

C O N T E N T S

List of Plates
List of Figures
Series Editor’s Introduction
Acknowledgements

Introduction — Jan Dirk Baetens, Susan Bracken, and Adriana Turpin

Part I: Agents in the Market, 1550–1720
I Introduction: Agents in the Art Market, 1550–1720 — Sandra van Ginhoven
1  Hans Albrecht von Sprinzenstein: An Austrian Art Agent in the Service of Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol — Adriana Concin
2  Marco Boschini and the Artists of His Time — Linda Borean
3  International Art Dealers, Local Agents, and Their Clients in Seventeenth-Century Habsburg Inner Austria — Tina Košak
4  James Thornhill as an Agent-Collector in Early-Eighteenth-Century Paris — Tamsin Lee-Woolfe

Part II: Agents in the Long Eighteenth Century
II Introduction: Hidden Figures – Agents in the Long Eighteenth Century — Bénédicte Miyamoto
5  Scottish Agents in Rome in the Eighteenth Century: The Case of Peter Grant — Maria Celeste Cola
6  ‘An Oracle for Collectors’: Philipp von Stosch and Collecting and Dealing in Art and Antiquities in Early-Eighteenth-Century Rome and Florence — Ulf R. Hansson
7  Shaping the Taste of British Diplomats in Eighteenth-Century Venice — Laura-Maria Popoviciu
8  Establishing Honest Trading Relationships: Academic Painters in the Art Market of Eighteenth-Century France — Christine Godfroy-Gallardo
9  The German Art Market in the Eighteenth Century — Renata Schellenberg
10  Playing the Market: Lord Yarmouth, the Prince Regent, and the Role of the Royal Agent, 1806–19 — Rebecca Lyons

Part III: The Agent in the Modern European Art Market, 1820–1950
III Introduction: The Art Market in Europe, 1820–1950 — Anne Helmreich
11  Edward Solly, Felice Cartoni, and Their Purchases of Paintings: A ‘Milord’ and His ‘Commissioner’ Anticipating a Transnational Network of Dealers, c. 1820 — Robert Skwirblies
12  ‘To see once again the glorious picture by Moretto before it is forever lost for Rome’: How an Artist’s Position in the Canon of Taste Was Enhanced in the Nineteenth Century — Corina Meyer
13  ‘It is not my fault if in all the private collections, the Dutch paintings surpass all’: Thoré-Bürger’s Promotion of Dutch Art in the Parisian Art Market of the 1860s — Frances Suzman Jowell
14  The Beurdeleys: A Dynasty of Curiosity Dealers and Their Networks — Camille Mestdagh
15  Collaboration and Resistance: The National Gallery, London, and the Italian Art Market at the End of the Nineteenth Century — Elena J. Greer
16  ‘I shall set at once about the work’: Some Agents in China — Nick Pearce
17  Promoting Themselves: Agents and Strategies in early Surrealism’s Art Market — Alice Ensabella

Part IV: Agents in the Market for American Collectors
IV Introduction: Collecting Alliances in the United States during the Long Nineteenth century — Inge Reist
18  Can a Leopard Change Its Spots? René Gimpel, Art Dealer — Diana J. Kostyrko
19  Samuel P. Avery’s Early Career: The Emergence of a Successful Art Agent, Art Dealer, and Art Expert — Madeleine Fidell-Beaufort
20  Dealing with Allegories of the Four Parts of the World: James Hazen Hyde (1876–1959) and His Network — Louise Arizzoli
21  Laying the Foundation: Harold Woodbury Parsons and the Making of an American Museum — MacKenzie Mallon
22  Convergences: Art History, Museums, and Scholar-Agent Martin Birnbaum’s Transatlantic Art for the Public — Julie Codell

Bibliography
Contributors
Index