London and the Emergence of a European Art Market (c. 1780-1820)

The French Revolution and the ensuing Napoleonic Wars with occupations
of Italy, Spain and the Low Countries, instigated a sweeping
redistribution of art. At the same time, the Papacy’s loss of temporal
power undermined the enforcement of export laws in the Papal States.
This convergence of events ensured that large volumes of
paintings—often entire collections, from European monasteries,
churches, and private palaces—were widely dispersed via auction and
private treaty sales in a true diaspora of art. Current scholarship
posits that amidst these large-scale market transformations London
emerged as the new hub of the international art trade, replacing
Paris. The well-known example of the move of the Orléans collection to
London, where it was sold through various private treaty transactions
and a series of auctions between 1798 and 1802, is often considered a
pars pro toto for the British assumption of power on the international
art market.

While some studies have begun to address the velocity and scale of
this redistribution, little has been done to analyze the dynamic
networks of agents who provided the infrastructure for the circulation
of art works and sales information throughout Europe. Economist Neil
de Marchi recently pointed out that the financial market linking
crucial centers such as Amsterdam, London, and Paris has been studied
in depth, but comparable research into the “mechanism of the painting
trade and the extent to which it was integrated across those centers
has barely begun.” This conference aspires to tackle this issue by
convening scholars and experts from a range of disciplines to discuss
broad research questions such as: Did the long-term effects of the
political turmoil in France alter the existing personal and
professional networks of dealers and connoisseurs? What would have
been the motivations to ship art works to foreign market places? How
integrated was the European art market around 1800, or were there
still relatively independent local markets? Was there an implied
hierarchy of metropolitan markets or were conditions too volatile and
fluid for fixed patterns to emerge?

Given the vast amount of historical evidence now available to
scholars, we have the capacity to address these micro and macro
developments in innovative ways. Over the last two years the National
Gallery, London, and the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, have
collaborated on a project to research, transcribe, and index auction
catalogues published in Great Britain between 1780 and 1800. By
January 2013, almost 100,000 new sales records from c. 1,200
catalogues will be published online, via the Getty Provenance Index®
databases. This will add significantly and strategically to the
already extant data-pool of approximately half a million records from
British, French, German, Dutch, Belgian, and Scandinavian Sales,
spanning the period of c. 1780 to 1820.

One of the main objectives of this international conference is to work
towards a methodological synergy of art historical case studies and
data-driven socioeconomic analysis in order to understand better the
mechanisms of the international art trade at this pivotal period as
well as the long-term implications for the history of collecting, the
establishment of museums, and the formation of the discipline of art
history.

Topics for consideration include, but are not limited to:

- ARTWORKS Cross-border traffic of objects (cultural transfers,
customs regulations, arbitrage, etc.) and its effect on the formation
of private and public collections.

- AGENTS Market integration throughout Europe (national/transnational
dealer networks, centre and periphery, impact of revolution and war,
etc.)

- INFORMATION Auction catalogues as economic tool and literary genre
(classification systems, lot sequence, transparency, connoisseurship,
etc.)

- VALUES Idea of art as an investment (different national canons and
currencies, growth of investment-minded collectors, ascendancy of the
banker as a key player, price manipulation, etc.)

Please send proposals for papers (to last 30 minutes) of no more than
250 words by 15 February 2013 to either/both:

Susanna Avery-Quash
Research Curator in the History of Collecting and Display
The National Gallery, London
susanna.avery-quashng-london.org.uk

Christian Huemer
Managing Editor, Project for the Study of Collecting and
Provenance
The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
chuemergetty.edu