Enfilade

The long eighteenth century in the latest issue:

Journal of the History of Collections 37.2 (July 2025)

a r t i c l e s

• Christian Huemer and Tom Stammers, “Perspectives on the Study of the Art Market,” pp. 215–20.
As interest in art-market studies continues to grow, the editorial team of the Journal of the History of Collections decided to interview Christian Huemer, director of the Belvedere Research Center in Vienna, and editor of the Brill series Studies in the History of Collecting & Art Markets; and Tom Stammers, who is leading the new MA in Art and Business at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, to find out more about the subject and how it does and does not overlap with the study of collecting.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Girl Reading a Book, ca. 1770s, oil on canvas (London: The Wallace Collection).

• Yuriko Jackall, “French Art / English Taste: Richard Wallace’s Fragonards,” pp. 269–82.
Although an active collector of a broad range of objects, Sir Richard Wallace is more commonly known for his taste in nineteenth-century pictures, arms and armour, Renaissance maiolica and Kunstkammer objects than for his interest in eighteenth-century French painting. Nonetheless, he did add two significant works by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Girl Reading a Book and A Boy as Pierrot, to the large and distinguished collection of rococo art that he had inherited from his supposed father, the 4th Marquess of Hertford. This paper focuses on these two acquisitions, and suggests that their purchase represents a calculated move by Wallace to enhance the existing holdings of his collection. By adding these two paintings, he sought not only to augment the art-historical value of the collection that it was now his responsibility to shepherd, but also to improve its appeal within the context of late nineteenth-century British taste.

• Ollie Croker, “The Architect as Agent: Charles Heathcote Tatham at Woburn Abbey and Castle Howard,” pp. 359–72.
The acquisition of Classical antiquities by the British nobility in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries occurred within a complex social network. While the activities of prominent figures within this network have been well documented, those of lesser-known agents remain overlooked. This discussion focuses on Charles Heathcote Tatham (1772–1842), an architect involved in acquiring vases and sculptures for display at Woburn Abbey and Castle Howard. Acquisitions for both houses coincide with Tatham’s work designing galleries for these two estates. This suggests a means of collecting that has been less often studied: an architect is commissioned to acquire objects specifically for the interior decoration of his own architectural creations. Tatham’s dual role as architect and agent raises questions about the nature of these acquisitions, and the cultural associations his clients aimed to establish.

r e v i e w s

• Wu Yunong, Review of Becky MacGuire, Four Centuries of Blue and White: The Frelinghuysen Collection of Chinese and Japanese Export Porcelain (Ad Ilissvm, 2023), pp. 391–92.

• Adriana Turpin, Review of Ulrike Müller, Private Collectors in Brussels, Antwerp, and Ghent, ca.1780–1914: Between Public Relevance and Personal Pleasure (Brepols, 2024), pp. 392–94.

• Marjorie Schwarzer, Review of Jonathan Conlin, The Met: A History of a Museum and its People (Columbia University Press, 2024), pp. 394–96.

• Jonathan Conlin, Review of Erica Ciallela and Philip Palmer, eds., Belle da Costa Greene: A Librarian’s Legacy (DelMonico Books, 2024) and Vanessa Sigalas and Jennifer Tonkovich, eds., Morgan―The Collector: Essays in Honor of Linda Roth’s 40th Anniversary at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (Arnoldsche Verlagsanstalt, 2023), pp. 396–97.