History of Collecting

In May 1936 eleven small objects that had arrived a few days earlier at the port of Piraeus aboard the ‘Sorrento’ were added to the Benaki  Museum inventory book with the numbers 2411 to 2420 and 2910. They were part of a donation of 452 ceramics, mostly Chinese, from the collection of George Eumorfopoulos (1863–1939), a British collector of Greek origin. Back in 1929, Eumorfopoulos, the most celebrated East Asian art collector of his generation, had offered 341 ceramics to the Greek nation and two years later these were included in the founding collection of the museum that Antonis Benakis (1873–1954) created in memory of his parents. The eleven ceramics of the 1936 donation, dated to between the eleventh and eighteenth centuries, were of Korean manufacture; they had already been published in 1928 in the lavish Eumorfopoulos Collection catalogue. This book examines these eleven ceramics as works of Goryeo and Joseon art but also as collector's items in the 20th century and as museum objects in the 21st century.

https://www.benakishop.gr/en/new-arrivals/keramiki-apo-tin-korea-sto-mouseio-mpenaki-sullogi-georgiou-eumorfopoulou-ceramics-from-korea-at-the-benaki-museum-the-george-eumorfopoulos-collection-bmm471.html

A book published on the occasion of the ‘Ceramics from Korea’ exhibition at the Benaki Museum / Pireos 138 in autumn 2021 (23 September – 7 November), celebrating 60 years of friendship between Korea and Greece (1961–2021).

In Italia, a partire dal primo Cinquecento, le fonti archivistiche e letterarie usano in modo univoco la parola 'libro' per significare sia i volumi disegnati da pittori, scultori, architetti, decoratori o argentieri, sia i volumi di disegni di uno o più artisti, di una o più scuole, formati dai collezionisti, conoscitori e amatori. Gli uni e gli altri volumi costituiscono gli elementi di un unico grande insieme, l’insieme dei libri di disegni, all’interno del quale è possibile riconoscere almeno due distinti sottoinsiemi: quello dei libri disegnati e quello dei libri dei disegni.
Da una parte, il libro disegnato - con modelli, studi, schizzi - è, da Leonardo all’età contemporanea, il prodotto dell’intelligenza del singolo artista, del maestro e della sua cerchia, di un atelier, e dunque del metodo e dell’organizzazione individuale o collettiva del lavoro creativo. In quanto tale, è un insieme finito e complesso di disegni originali - diversi fra loro per materia stilistico-formale, contenuto e funzione -, che non può essere studiato, né tanto meno compreso nella sua interezza e complessità solo attraverso l’analisi dei suoi singoli elementi e dei caratteri codicologici, ma richiede di essere analizzato sotto ogni aspetto in relazione con oggetti analoghi e comparabili, i più vicini e i più pertinenti possibili.
Dall’altra parte, il libro dei disegni da collezione, divenuto nella tradizione nord-europea del Sei-Settecento l’album di disegni, è, da Giorgio Vasari a Giuseppe Bossi, una stratificazione di elementi grafici, eterogenei e disomogenei, operata da una o più intelligenze di amatori, collezionisti, conservatori o restauratori. I disegni di uno o più artisti, di uno o più ateliers, che lo compongono, hanno perduto nel nuovo assetto la loro originaria configurazione materiale, stilistico-formale, contenutistica e funzionale. Per questa loro specificità, i libri o album di disegni da collezione costituiscono straordinari campi e strumenti di indagine per la riscoperta, la conoscenza e la ricostituzione di libri disegnati preesistenti, dei quali spesso conservano fascicoli, pagine e vetera fragmenta.
Come Federico Zuccari nella foresta di Vallombrosa, gli autori dei ventitré saggi racchiusi in questo libro si sono posti con gli strumenti del disegno interno - capacità umana di disegnare fondati e verificabili scenari argomentativi -, e della parola proferita e scritta secondo i fondamenti del discorso logico, ai margini e all’interno dei due sottoinsiemi, illuminando alcuni exempla extraordinaria ora dell’uno ora dell’altro ora di entrambi e rendendo intellegibile la circolarità generativa che connette lo studio dei libri disegnati e quello dei libri dei disegni.
Vita Segreto

Using the evidence of his 1698 death inventory, this article reconstructs how Cardinal Paluzzo Altieri’s collection of paintings and furniture was displayed in his apartment in the Altieri palace in Rome. Although scholars have occasionally cited individual objects, the inventory has never been published. Numerous entries are here linked to extant paintings, providing new provenance information for works in public and private collections. Paluzzo emerges as a cautious collector, single-mindedly directed towards underscoring his piety and his identity as a loyal ex-cardinal nephew. Analysis of the inventory provides a new foundation for considering the patronage dynamics of the important late-seventeenth century Altieri family, and contributes fresh material into the study of collecting and display as self-fashioning in papal Rome. This is part one of a two-part study; the second part will consider Paluzzo's other spaces in the palace, and a broader array of objects, including sculpture, decorative arts, and naturalia.

The Most Perfect Knowledge and Complete Power. Collecting and Art of Memory in the Early Modern Period - Abstract

The article focuses on the relations between the early modern theory and practice of collecting on the one hand and collecting on the other. An analysis of a selection of texts: museological, scientific, didactic and literary from between ca. 1550 and 1750 (by, among others, Samuel Quiccheberg, Johann Daniel Major, Francis Bacon, Caspar Fridrich Neickel) serves to indi- cate some places of their interpenetration, intersection, interaction, mainly in the areas of knowledge and power, both with a strong utopian streak.
A close relationship between collecting and ars memoriae resulted firstly from the fact that they were rooted in the same assumptions: about a great persuasion power of objects and images, about the existence of pre-estab- lished harmony of things that could be discovered and imitated, about the possibility of universal science. They were also united both by the common purpose (that is knowledge, and in the ideal case – the total knowledge), and by methods (wandering through real or mental spaces with carefully arranged, strong visual and semantically expressive, thought-provoking objects or images). The author attempts to determine the consequences of this bringing together the art of collecting and mnemonics for the early mod- ern theories of knowledge and for the discourse of power and in which way it manifested itself in the utopian thought of that period.

ABSTRACT: This book chapter considers the interest in Etruscan engraved gems and jewellery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, from the scholarly and collecting activities of Philipp von Stosch, Anton Francesco Gori and others in Florence in the heyday of the Etruscan Revival, to the complete re-systematization of the Etruscan glyptic material by Adolf Furtwängler at the turn of the century 1900. It also discusses the interesting cultural phenomenon of the dactyliothecae (gem cast cabinets), amateur and commercial serial-production of gem impressions and gem casts in various materials, and the re-use and imitation of Etruscan gems and goldwork in the so-called “archaeological jewellery” produced by the Castellani and other workshops.

This article traces the pictorial lineages of images collected in one of the two Thun-Hohenstein albums through comparative analyses of fight books produced in the German-speaking lands, and considers how the representational strategies deployed in martial treatises inflected the ways that book painters and their audiences visualized the armoured body.

Ignazio Enrico Hugford (1703-1778) was a painter of English origin who was trained under Anton Domenico Gabbiani. As art dealer and connoisseur, he was among the most important collectors of works on paper in eighteenth-century Florence and had prolific and wide-ranging contacts throughout Europe. He was in close touch with Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri, and his correspondents also included Pierre Jean Mariette and Giovanni Gaetano Bottari. Among the over three thousand drawings bequeathed to his heirs and acquired in 1779 for the Uffizi by its director Giuseppe Pelli Bencivenni, one hundred and five sheets were attributed to artists of non-Italian schools. The attentive descriptions of Pelli’s inventory, the characteristic framing applied by Hugford and his inscriptions on some of the sheets have made it possible to identify almost all of these drawings, now in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi. Research has also revealed Hugford’s talent as connoisseur, his interest in certain artists, and how Northern European drawings were regarded in the Florence of his time. This group includes sheets attributed to the Germans Dürer and Holbein, the Flemings Spranger and Lucas van Leyden, the French Callot and La Fage, and the Portuguese Francisco Vieira. Although many of these attributions are no longer acceptable, the identification of individual drawings has made it possible to confirm their authorship, and in some cases to suggest new attributions.

Cette thèse parle d’Hommes, d’art et de société. Elle traite de l’histoire d’un banquier Juif ashkénaze né à Bonn en 1804 et de ses descendants. À travers l’étude de douze demeures et de leurs collections, elle raconte l’histoire d’une dynastie d’entrepreneurs qui, de l’ancien Ghetto de Bonn – 821 rue des Juifs – rejoignit le sommet de la haute société européenne. Portraiturés par Léon Bonnat, Carolus-Duran et Renoir, Meyer Joseph Cahen d’Anvers et ses enfants Édouard, Emma, Louis, Raphaël et Albert vécurent les conséquences de l’Affaire Dreyfus, s’efforçant d’exprimer la plénitude de leurs droits civils à travers la sociabilité et le mécénat. Dans leurs salons, en ville et à la campagne, les lecteurs croiseront les pas de Guy de Maupassant, Paul Bourget, Marcel Proust et César Franck, ou encore de Gabriele D’Annunzio et Matilde Serao. Au château de Champs-sur-Marne, à Torre Alfina et dans les autres demeures de la famille les architectes Destailleur et Giuseppe Partini, ou encore les paysagistes Henri et Achille Duchêne, surent plier la « grammaire » du Moyen Âge, de la Renaissance et du XVIIIe siècle au goût et aux ambitions de leurs commanditaires.

https://www.lgdj.fr/les-cahen-d-anvers-en-france-et-en-italie-9782370323743.html

[By Christopher Lotis and Michel D. Lee; Foreword by P.M. Taylor. This full book is uploaded here while the Smithsonian website, where it was published online, is being revised.]

An important theme of this volume is the relationship between ceramics and cultural identity, especially as it relates to a particular family’s collection, and also to the broader study of the personal and social aspects of collecting. The book thus forms a contribution not only to the study of Korea’s material heritage but also to Korean-American or Asian-American studies, and to the
history of collecting. It will surely be of interest to art as well as social historians, and to all those who appreciate the aesthetic quality of Korea’s ceramic art.

The authors’ “behind-the-scenes” study of this private collection included the creation of an extensive research database about it, not only the ceramics included in this volume but also paintings, costumes, bronze works, and many other objects that could form the basis for subsequent studies. The collection includes some important twentieth-century ceramics that have not been included within this volume; these await study alongside other works by contemporary artists in this wide-ranging
collection. As the authors emphasize, the component of the Chang collection selected for publication here has been extensively tested using thermoluminescence testing. For this reason, these objects constitute an important “type collection” of tested pieces for this type of materials analysis, against which other ceramic works may be compared.

This book should therefore serve as an important reference for work on its topic, as a unique and well-illustrated introduction to this private collection and its significance; and hopefully also as a stimulus for other studies within this and related private collections.

[NOTE: 2 photos, available in the print edition (p. 12), have been extracted from this online book because the copyright holder disallows online publication of those photos.]

O interesse polifacetado do rei D. Fernando II pelo colecionismo levou-o a reunir um conjunto consistente de objetos em metal esmaltado, produzidos essencialmente em Limoges, no século XVI, sobretudo placas com temas religiosos e mitológicos assinadas por importantes esmaltadores. Este núcleo teve início logo após a sua chegada a Portugal, em 1836, e foi pontualmente enriquecido ao longo dos anos, dispersando-se nas partilhadas familiares efetuadas na sequência da sua morte, em 1885, naquela que foi uma das melhores coleções do seu género alguma vez formada em território nacional. Texto elaborado para o catálogo da exposição “Azul e Ouro. Esmaltes em Portugal da Época Medieval à Época Moderna” (Porto, Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis, 2021).

"The Culture of Dress History in France: The Past in Fashion, 1814-1900," studies the role of historic dress and dress history in creating knowledge about the past in nineteenth century France. This research examined how the practice of writing about, collecting, exhibiting, making, and representing historic and historicizing dress helped the French visualize their past. The conceptual questions raised by looking at the way that people observed and used historic artifacts not only expands the history of studying artifacts but also contributes to our thinking about how to study an artifact.

Directed by Peter Miller and Michele Majer. 433 pages. Defended in September, 2015. Registered in ProQuest in 2016.

Disegni spagnoli e italiani del Cinquecento della Biblioteca Nacional de España è il risultato di un primo approccio d’insieme all’importante patrimonio grafico del Cinquecento di questa istituzione, realizzato nell’ambito del progetto di ricerca Har2017-86804-P del Ministero della Scienza e dell’innovazione di Spagna, diretto dai professori Benito Navarrete Prieto e Gonzalo Redín Michaus. Lo studio intrapreso ha voluto tenere in considerazione l’indiscutibile relazione che legava italia e Spagna nel Cinquecento, intesa come parte di un’identità mediterranea comune, frutto di scambi, flussi, ibridazioni e influenze degli artisti spagnoli e italiani.
Il volume si apre con un’introduzione storiografica a cura di Marzia Faietti che fa il punto sugli studi sui disegni italiani conservati in Spagna effettuati fino agli anni ottanta. a questa fa seguito il saggio di elena Santiago Páez e Beatriz Hidalgo Caldas sulla provenienza delle collezioni di disegni acquisite nell’ottocento dall’istituzione spagnola, essenzialmente quelle di valentín Carderera, José de Madrazo e Manuel Castellano. Da questo punto di vista, lo studio calligrafico delle iscrizioni e dei marchi di collezione è stato fondamentale per tracciare il percorso delle raccolte più antiche, come quella del pittore spagnolo del Seicento Francisco de Solís oppure, nel secolo successivo, quella di padre Sebastiano resta, oggetto dell’approfondimento di Francesco Grisolia. Benito Navarrete Prieto affronta il tema dell’identità e dell’appropriazione culturale del disegno spagnolo e italiano analizzando i legami tra Spagna e italia e successivamente Gonzalo Redín Michaus fa un bilancio delle nuove attribuzioni dei disegni italiani della Biblioteca Nacional. Federica Mancini si occupa dei disegni genovesi e dei problemi di attribuzione, avanzando nuove proposte d’indagine, mentre Carlos Plaza fa luce sulle collezioni di disegni di architettura, riflettendo sulla ricchezza di queste raccolte e sul modo di studiarle. Manuel arias Martínez si concentra sull’importanza dei disegni per i retabli di Gaspar Becerra e sul loro rapporto con i modelli italiani, infine José ramón Marcaida López analizza in termini metodologici le possibilità di studio per la storia della scienza offerte dai due manoscritti di Leonardo da vinci che fanno parte del patrimonio della Biblioteca Nacional. Il volume include un catalogo di disegni selezionati a seguito della ricerca e studiati da specialisti della materia: Manuel Arias Martínez, Antonella Chiodo, Elisabetta Fadda, Marzia Faietti, Mauro Vincenzo Fontana, Carmen García Frías-Checa, Antonio Geremicca, Francesco Grisolia, Federica Mancini, Giorgio Marini, Manuela B. Mena Marqués, Francisco Merino rodríguez, Carmen Morte García, Benito Navarrete Prieto, Elena Parma, Carlos Plaza, Gonzalo Redín Michaus e Patrizia Tosini.

in «Notizie di pittura raccolte dal Padre Resta». Il carteggio con Giuseppe Ghezzi e altri corrispondenti, a cura di Maria Rosa Pizzoni, Roma, UniversItalia, 2018, pp. 107-128.
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Su padre Sebastiano Resta e Leonardo da Vinci si veda anche: https://www.academia.edu/49350830/_Vero_lume_il_Leonardo_e_i_Leonardo_di_padre_Resta

This article examines the exhibitions and sales of Yuanmingyuan (or "Summer Palace") loot taken from China in October 1860 by two soldiers in the Anglo-French armies-James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin (1811-1863) and Captain Jean-Louis de Negroni (b.1820). Both men displayed their collections before auctioning them-the former in the prestigious South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) in 1862; the latter in a well known exhibitionary site, the Crystal Palace in Sydenham in 1865. Such displays and public exhibitions were used as a device for enhancing the value of collections destined for the art market. This paper focuses on the commercial and exhibitionary practices at play in the dispersal of Elgin's and Negroni's collections of Summer Palace loot. It examines how these objects became enmeshed in the interacting system of auction, dealer and exhibitionary sphere, emphasising the role of auction houses, the significance of British press coverage in confirming the quality and value of collections, and the interrelationships with prominent sites of public display in 1860s and 1870s London.

Steere was  19th century polymath and naturalist. Inspired by leading scientists of his day, he repeatedly traveled to Brazil, Taiwan, and the Philippines. Throughout these voyages, he made collections, securing for the University Museum over seventy species of birds new to science and thousands of further specimens and objects pertaining to ethnography, zoology, paleontology, archeology and botany.

Japanese Woodblock Prints and Collectors in the Czech Lands offers the first comprehensive look at the history of the collecting of Japanese woodblock prints in Bohemia and Moravia, which tied in with the broader phenomenon of Japanese art collecting in Europe in the second half of the 19 th century. This became one of the main sources of inspiration for Japonisme in art, which the author explored in a previous publication-Japonisme in Czech Art (2014). The book showcases the range of collections of Japanese woodblock prints in the Czech Republic and especially the variety of individuals who helped shape awareness of Japanese culture during the period of the book's focus, and because of whom important collections of Japanese woodblock prints have been preserved to the present day. The book is therefore also devoted to presenting portraits of individual collectors, and these are accompanied by selected examples of the most interesting woodblock prints from their collections. The collections of Japanese woodblock prints that developed in the Czech lands in the late 19th century and the early 20th century came to form a strong foundation for the collections developed at Náprstek Museum in Prague and the National Gallery in Prague (NGP), and for other collections in Bohemia and Moravia. By tracing the collecting of Japanese woodblock prints a more comprehensive picture of the collectors themselves and of the motives and opportunities that shaped their collections is obtained, along with insight into the contemporary awareness of Japanese culture and its influence on the Czech cultural environment, especially with respect to the phenomenon of Japonisme. This art-historical discussion is accompanied by chemical and technical analyses of the pigments in selected woodblock prints from the NGP´s collection.

Pioneers of the Global Art Market: Paris-Based Dealer Networks, 1850-1950: Ed. Christel H. Force, 2020. London : Bloomsbury, 288pp., 16 colour & 56 b/w illustrations. Hardback £90, Paperback £24.99, eBook and/or EPUB £81. ISBN 9781501342769 (hardback), ISBN 9781350282841 (paperback), ISBN 9781501342776 (eBook), ISBN 9781501342783 (eBook & EPUB)

This book, edited by Christel H. Force and published as part of the growing Bloomsbury series on ‘Contextualising Art Markets’ edited by Kathryn Brown (Loughborough University) dissects the dealer networks responsible for disseminating French modernism internationally, from its beginnings to its solidification as a key part of the art historical canon. The timespan of 1850 to 1950 enables the authors to scrutinise every development of the aesthetic shift, from the Barbizon school to the ‘isms’ which took pride of place in the artistic hierarchy over time. Paris is presented as the centre of this revolution which radiated outward to the rest of the world, not just in Europe and North America, but also to Asia and South America.

Über 2000 Gemälde, über 800 verschiedene Gesichter, über 80 Selbstbildnisse: Dies ist das beachtliche Oeuvre des Schweizer Malers Anton Graff (1736-1813). Als wohl prominentester Porträtzeichner seiner Zeit schuf er Werke, die in ihrer bildnerischen Aussagekraft, psychologischen Tiefe und handwerklichen Präzision ihresgleichen suchen. Graff avancierte zum Schöpfer des bürgerlichen Frauen- und Männerporträts im Deutschland des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts. Kaum ein Regent, Staatsmann, Gelehrter, Dichter oder Künstler fehlt in der langen Liste der von ihm porträtierten Personen.

Anlässlich des 200. Todestages des Künstlers vereint der Band Gemälde Graffs mit Texten von Schriftstellern und Wissenschaftlern und bietet damit ein buntes Kaleidoskop des 18. Jahrhunderts.

Through examining Cole’s own life and his fascination with the textual and corporeal narratives of anatomy, this paper looks to explore the merging of scientific knowledge, bibliographic expertise and narrative to perform interdisciplinary ‘readings’, simultaneously challenging both the nineteenth-century emergence of subject discipline and the twentieth-century ‘two cultures’ divide.

Chapter: Reflecting on the past and future of curation in archaeology, this chapter summarizes some of the challenges, victories, and paths forward for curation, emphasizing education and community outreach as critical mechanisms of change.

Book: All archaeologists have responsibilities to support the collections they produce, yet budgeting for and managing collections over the length of a project and beyond is not part of most archaeologists' training. While this book highlights major challenges that archaeologists and curators face with regards to collections, it also stresses the values, uses, and benefits of collections. It also demonstrates the continued significance of archaeological collections to the profession, tribes, and the public and provides critical resources for archaeologists to carry out their responsibilities. Many lament that the archaeological record is finite and disappearing. In this context, collections are even more important to preserve for future use, and this book will help all stakeholders do so.

While earlier studies have focused predominantly on artist François Boucher’s artistic style and identity, this book presents the first full-length interdisciplinary study of Boucher’s prolific collection of around 13,500 objects including paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, porcelain, shells, minerals, and other imported curios. It discusses the types of objects he collected, the networks through which he acquired them, and their spectacular display in his custom-designed studio at the Louvre, where he lived and worked for nearly two decades. This book explores the role his collection played in the development of his art, his studio, his friendships, and the burgeoning market for luxury goods in mid-eighteenth-century France. In doing so, it sheds new light on the relationship between Boucher’s artistic and collecting practices, which attracted both praise and criticism from period observers.

C O N T E N T S

Introduction: In Pursuit of Pleasure

Part 1: The Artist as Agent
1  Modernizing Watteau: Marketing Luxury in France and Sweden
2  Boucher and the Art of Conchyliomanie

Part 2: The Artist as Collector
3  Trading Places: Boucher as a Collector of Fine Art
4  The Business of Collecting

Part 3: The Collector as Artist
5  A New Address: Boucher at the Louvre
6  Boucher’s Cabinet of Natural History
7  The Artist Inspired: Representing Genius and the Art of Emulation

This article re-examines the primary sources concerning the findspot of an 8-foot-tall bronze statue, usually identified as the Emperor Trebonianus Gallus, now residing at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. It identifies a new source as the origin of the story of the statue’s alleged discovery two centuries ago in the Lateran neighborhood of Rome, and argues that the source is not a trustworthy one. It considers the vested interests of the statue’s various owners, as well as the scholarly conventions, that kept – and continue to keep – the dubious story alive. It concludes that this is a cautionary tale; and that the provenances of the ostensibly best-known works of ancient art are just as much in need of critical examination as those of recently-surfaced antiquities.

Speculating on Old Master paintings during the French Revolution: the Trumbull, Parker and Lebrun partnership
Sarah Bakkali, independent scholar

During troubled times, as it is currently the case with the terrible crisis we are all going through, art has been seen as a kind of safe haven for investors. Of course, this is only true for exceptional pieces with an irreproachable pedigree, for example, old works of sure attribution and prestigious provenance. We propose here to challenge this commonplace idea for the French Revolution period and question how the financial crisis structured the art market.
To do so, we relied on a very well-documented case, the so-called "speculative adventure" of John Trumbull and Daniel Parker. In 1794, John Trumbull, an American painter and son of the Governor of Connecticut, went to France as private secretary of John Jay to negotiate with the British government. As France was at war with the United Kingdom, this severely hindered trade between dealers of both countries and exports. As a citizen coming from a neutral country, son of a governor in close contact with the American delegation based in Paris, Trumbull enjoyed many facilities allowing him to engage in many speculations including that of Old Master paintings. Both of them joined forces with the art dealer Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun to carry out these operations. From the choice of acquisitions to their financing and exportation, they were all meticulously recorded in an account book, today kept at the New York Historical Society Library. Supplemented by personal Trumbull’s archives kept at the Yale University Library as well as his correspondence, we could reconstruct his financial arrangements and draw up his guidelines for making business during the revolutionary turmoil in Paris.
After a presentation of those operations, we will take a closer look at the actors and stakes, and especially the role of Lebrun, on whose connoisseurship the whole financial package was based. Behind, what was at stake was the status of the merchandise: a "safe haven", a “long term

This paper analyzes the art market for the painter Emile Friant. The dataset is available online :
Saint-Raymond, Léa, 2016, "Les ventes aux enchères des oeuvres d'Emile Friant, à Paris, du vivant du peintre", doi:10.7910/DVN/T0NGJ6, Harvard Dataverse, V1