This collection of essays presents a status quaestionis
concerning the dissemination of Flemish and Dutch art during the
period 1400-1800, and highlights the role art auctions and dealers
have played in this process. Auctions emerged as the primary
channel for art sales at the end of the seventeenth century in the
Low Countries and during the eighteenth century, countless local
art collections were broken up and put up for auction. Especially
(old master) paintings exchanged hands in great numbers at these
public sales, and the finest pieces frequently ended up in foreign
holdings.
The activities of the professional art dealer form the focus of
several essays. These intermediaries played an instrumental role in
the commercialization and expansion of the art trade in early
modern Europe. They had a profound impact on the history of
collecting as they mediated and even influenced taste. Naturally,
the role of art dealers changed over time. Therefore, the
historians, art historians and economists who contributed to this
volume have approached this phenomenon in an interdisciplinary
fashion in order to properly understand how art markets functioned.
In doing so, these essays explore the various ways in which art
dealers helped shape markets for art, and how they facilitated the
increasing volume of exports of Netherlandish art from the
sixteenth century onwards.
Hans Vlieghe is professor emeritus at the
University of Leuven. He has published extensively on Flemish art
of the 17th century, especially on Rubens and his
circle.
Filip Vermeylen is assistant professor of
Cultural Economics at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. His
current research focuses on the history of art markets.
Dries Lyna works at the Center for Urban
History (University of Antwerp), where he is currently preparing a
Ph.D. thesis on art auctions in eighteenth-century Antwerp and
Brussels.