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From ArtHist.net:

The Backstage View: A Mundane History of Collecting, 1600–1918
Collegium Maius, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, 26–27 October 2023

Organized by Michał Mencfel and Camilla Murgia

After more than half a century of intense scientific exploration, resulting in hundreds of in-depth studies, the history of collections has established itself as one of the privileged fields of research in the humanities. Various issues such as the provenance of objects in collections; ways in which these objects have been ordered, arranged, and displayed; rooms and buildings in which they have been kept and exhibited; narratives beyond objects and collections; biographies of collectors; social practices connected with collections, etc. have been versatilely investigated. Consequently, collecting—fascinating in its own right—has proved also to be a sensitive indicator of broad cultural and social phenomena connected with artistic, scientific, philosophical, societal, and political movements.

Indeed, recent research has shown how the art market has been crucial to the history of collections in specific cultural contexts that have undergone a series of exchanges and openings linking different economic elements and realities (Brill’s Studies in the History of Collecting & Art Markets). Furthermore, particular attention has been paid to both the circulation of works of art from the perspective of collecting strategies (Art Markets, Agents and Collectors: Collecting Strategies in Europe and the United States 1550–1950, ed. by Adriana Turpin and Susan Bracken, 2021), and of provenances (Study of Collecting and Provenance and the Getty Provenance Index).

Collecting, however, also relies on a great number of less noble and less sophisticated but nevertheless indispensable practices. These include negotiating with artists and dealers, observing (or escaping) the formalities, paying (or avoiding paying) customs fees, transporting and securing the collectibles, restoring and framing the pieces of art, etc. The present call for contributions aims to invite proposals for papers focusing on this everyday—somewhat down-to-earth and mundane—side of collecting. What about this background, consisting of daily actions, practical skills, and made-to-measure resolutions, that contributes to the constitution of collections and the act of collecting itself? How does this meticulous, essential and somehow ‘invisible’ infrastructure enable the purchase, conditioning, sale, and exchange of artwork?

This conference aims to explore the various aspects regarding the mundane site of the history of collecting. We intend to question the multitude of logistic, administrative, organisational, and managerial practices that contribute to the act of collecting and how they affect selling and buying artwork. We are interested in identifying and studying the elements that mark out the diverse and versatile apparatuses of collecting in specific cultural, social, and economic realities, both private and public. Changes in issues, paradigms, and availability are at the heart of our study.

Conference Organizers
Michał Mencfel (Adam Mickiewicz University), mmencfel@amu.edu.pl
Camilla Murgia (Université de Lausanne), camilla.murgia@unil.ch

t h u r s d a y ,  2 6  o c t o b e r  2 0 2 3

9.00  Registration

9.30  Welcome by Michał Mencfel (Adam Mickiewicz University) and Camilla Murgia (Université de Lausanne)

1000  Panel 1 | References
• Katharina Januschewski (Universität Paderborn) — Selling Italian Landscapes to the Russian Empire: Sylvester Shchedrin’s Letters from Italy (1818–30) as a Source for International Art Transport Logistics and Sales Strategies
• Malena Rotter (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel) — ‘I Am Gradually Acquiring the Necessary Material for a Gallery of Italian Pieces’: Landgrave William VIII of Hesse-Kassel (1682–1760) and His Italian Collection

11.10  Coffee

11.30  Panel 2 | Mundanity
• Ulrike Müller (Antwerp University and Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium) and Davy Depelchin (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium) — Staging Privately-Owned Artworks: Private Collectors and the Exhibitions for Living Masters in Brussels, 1830–1860
• Maria Chiara Scuderi (University of Leicester) — Missionary Exhibitions as Mundane Sites for Private Collections: The Case of Dryad ‘Handicrafts’

12:40  Lunch

14.15  Panel 3 | Curating
• Arianna Candeago (Ca’ Foscari University Venice) — On the Art Market in Late 18th-Century Venice: Everyday Practices from the Letters of Collectors and Intermediaries
• Michelle Huang (University of St Andrews) — Curatorial Considerations and Practices behind the Acquisitions of the George Eumorfopoulos Collection of Chinese Art by the British Museum and the V&A

15.20  Coffee

15.40  Panel 4 | Practices
• Dorothee Haffner (Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin) — Organising and Visualising Collections: Changing Principles and Functions
• Laia Anguix-Vilches (Radboud University Nijmegen) — Women in the Backstage: Gender-Related Challenges in Institutional Collecting Practices

f r i d a y ,  2 7  o c t o b e r  2 0 2 3

9.30  Welcome by Michał Mencfel (Adam Mickiewicz University) and Camilla Murgia (Université de Lausanne)

9.45  Keynote Lecture
• Erin Thompson (City University of New York) — Backstage, Viewed from the Archives: Researching Illicit Trafficking in Cultural Property

10.45  Coffee

11.00  Panel 5 | Trading and Cataloguing
• Nadia Rizzo (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa) — The Unfortunate Vicissitudes of Jean Gossaert’s Malvagna Triptych
• Bénédicte Miyamoto (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle) — Auction Clerks and Paper Trails: The Bureaucracy of Collection Transfers in 18th-Century Britain
• Elizabeth Pergam (Society for the History of Collecting) — Trading Art History: Art Dealer Archives and Day-To-Day Business of Collecting

12.45  Lunch

14.30  Panel 6 | Shaping Collections
• Martyna Łukasiewicz (Adam Mickiewicz University) — Fortune and Vision: The Art Market and the Emergence of Major Art Collections in Copenhagen, 1850–1900
• Silvia Marin Barutcieff (University of Bucharest) — Collecting Art in Modern Romania: Social Circumstances and Economic Endeavors, 1881–1918

15.40  Closing Notes and Coffee