Friend or Foe: Art and the market in the Nineteenth Century The Hague, 21-22 May, 2015

Continuity and change: The nineteenth-century art market in perspective

Filip Vermeylen Professor of Global Art Markets Erasmus University Rotterdam www.filipvermeylen.com

The nineteenth-century art market in perspective 1. Auction houses 2. Dealers 3. Critics and art expertise 4. Continuity and change 5. The nineteenth century revisited

Paintings are universally acknowledged to be objects worthy of possession (Winstanley, Obvervations on the arts, 1828)

Booming art markets in Paris and London: - unprecedented economic growth - population explosion - disposable income (shift toward rents and profits) - agglomeration advantages and clustering - rough and ready customers : new art buyers - a steady supply of Dutch, Flemish and Italian pictures (old masters) in the 18th century - growing appetite for living painters after 1800

1. Auction houses and the secondary market • Exchange platforms • Engines of consumption: a collectors’ market? • Value creating mechanism: hammer prices as measures of success? • Dominance of Christie’s in London (92% of high end sales 1840-1900)

(Bayer & Page, 2011)

Beating Damien to the punch: auctions of new art • Legitimate venue for primary market sales in Paris in mid-nineteenth century • One-man sales of new art at Hôtel Drouot (f.i. Rousseau) • Impressionist auctions (f.i. Renoir in 1875), Gauguin in 1891

(Velthuis, 2011)

2. Art dealers • Birth of the dealer-critic system • Novel marketing strategies by means monopolisation of artists and their stock? • Supply-induced demand • Arbiters of taste • Internationalization of the art business (Goupil)

(White & White 1965, Baetens 2010)

Predecessors: Forchondt (Antwerp) • Guillaume Forchondt (active 1643-1678) and relatives / associates • Vertically integrated firm: integration of production and distribution process • Serial production based on prototypes (principaelen) • Offices (associates) in Antwerp, Vienna, Cadiz, Seville, … • 75% of trade in paintings was international • Diversification in traded luxury goods

(Van Ginhoven 2015, Rasterhoff & Vermeylen, forth.)

Source: Van Ginhoven (2015)

Network map of intermediate and end destinations of Forchondt’s sales of paintings

Source: Van Ginhoven (2015)

Predecessors: Gersaint (Paris) • François Edmé Gersaint (1694-1750)

• Marketing Dutch and Flemish pictures in Paris, acquisition and monopolisation of existing stock • Value creation through viewing days, extensive catalogues and auctions

• Successfully impacted taste formation and collecting practices using exemplars, references to similar artists and works of art • Branding of art dealership

Gersaint’s bundling strategies

Van Miegroet (2005)

Changing role of dealers • Decreasing presence of dealers and increasing presence as buyers • Auction houses take over the older role of dealers as sellers of collections • Coincides with establishment of ‘fixed location retail gallery operators’ (Bayer and Page, p. 78) • Clearer division between primary and secondary market Source: Bayer & Page (2011)

3. Critics and art expertise • Establishment of the dealer-critic system • Need for commercial expertise • Enlistment of critics and the power of the press • The Academy’s hegemony challenged (Arora & Vermeylen 2013, Jensen 1994)

Commercial expertise and new means of valuating art

4. Something old, something new… • Continuity: specialized art auctions, mediation of dealers, printed catalogues, internationalization of the art trade, critics and popular media (newspapers)

• Change: scale, new means of communication, widespread use of reproductive prints and photography, specialized art galleries, exhibition practices (solo shows), museums and curators, art history programs

5. The nineteenth century revisited • A speculative market? • Overturn of the academy system and consolidation of the dealer-critic system • Dealers as arbiters of taste • Birth of an integrated European art market? • Going forward: visualizations and big data approach, social network analysis, art markets other than London and Paris