The purpose of this study was to investigate art collectors’ specific method of developing and making critical judgments in the context of their understanding of art. Phenomenological research methods were employed to obtain data through interviews with collectors of Contemporary African American art, Latin American art, and Minimalist and Conceptual art. Based on the findings, collectors’ approaches to critical judgment can be categorized into three areas. First, critical skills are both intuitive and developed over time, through a holistic and aesthetic process set in the art world. Collectors’ edification requires commitment, and intense looking enabling them to see how works of art communicate. Second, key events that marked collectors’ methodological approaches were connections with artists and art, notable purchases, and exhibitions of their collection. These events resulted from an integration of the collectors’ identification with the art work, manifested over time in various forms. Finally, those objects that best reflected collectors’ specific development of critical judgment and understanding of art were noted either by specific artists in their collection or the collection as a whole, functioning as vital aspects of the collectors’ life and at the same time contributing to culture and society in its capacity to cause conversations. There is an opportunity to apply the information from collectors’ processes as an educational model for teaching and learning about appreciation and criticism in art education by thinking about art collections more broadly, as another way to look at life and the art in life.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 39-40).

My dissertation explores the formative stages of European interest in, engagement with and consumption of Indian pictorial art over a period of one hundred and fifty years, from the mid-16th century up to the early 18th century. During this period, European cabinets of curiosities witnessed the arrival of increasing numbers of a previously unknown class of collectible: Indian paintings on paper. Interest in these paintings was spurred by a growing curiosity about the East, combined with a general re-orientation of the European system of knowledge towards a more “scientific” methodology of inquiry, which encouraged a revision of the stereotypes that had informed medieval European conceptions of India through engagement with original sources. The relevance of this phenomenon to the history of early modern exchanges between India and Europe can hardly be overstated. Yet, modern scholarship has tended to ignore it, focusing instead on the Indian fascination with and reception of European artistic forms and techniques. This dissertation seeks to develop a more exhaustive picture of the early modern artistic encounter between India and the West, one in which European consumption of Indian paintings is dutifully represented and India plays an active role in the emerging system of knowledge. The starting and central point of my investigation consists of the vast and diversified collection of Indian paintings gathered by a Venetian traveler to India, Niccolò Manucci (1638-ca. 1720), as a visual accompaniment to his travel account, the so-called Storia do Mogor. This collection, which has remained largely ignored, makes a crucial case-study for approaching issues relative to the nature of European interest in Indian paintings in early modernity, the contexts and modalities through which this interest was articulated, as well as its relevance to processes of knowledge making and identity construction that were prompted by European encounters with alterities. The first part of my study provides an in-depth analysis of Manucci’s collection performed through a careful examination of the paintings it comprises along with contemporary textual sources, including the original manuscripts of the Storia do Mogor. My analysis exposes the interrelatedness of Manucci’s collecting enterprise with his authorial project, as well as assessing its broader scope and intended aims. The second part of the dissertation situates this collecting enterprise within its broader historical context by examining other European collections of Indian paintings dating from the 16th and 17th centuries and characterized by comparable subject matter: portraits of historical and living personages associated with Indo-Muslim dynasties, depictions of native Indian peoples and socio-religious customs, and representations of deities of the Hindu pantheon. Besides delving into the specifics of these collections, I explore their dialogic relation to one another and to descriptive practices and interpretative discourses that gained shape in European travel writing and print culture. In doing so, I highlight their participation in broader cultural trends and their contribution to evolving European approaches towards the Orient. This corpus of largely neglected works offers precious insights into the complex dynamics of cross-cultural encounter, as well as exposing the pivotal role played by early modernity in shaping later trends in Indo-European artistic interactions. Offering a direct antecedent to “Company painting,” a 19th-century Indian pictorial genre for European consumption, these works call for a revision of traditional understandings of the latter as an artistic development prompted by the rise of British colonial interests and agendas, and invite a broader reassessment of a unique historical era – the early modern one – that is key to understanding the roots of institutionalized Orientalism.

This dissertation examines portrait production during the global Gilded Age in the United States, revealing an interplay between cosmopolitanism and revivalism. Using a transnational and multi-media framework, it broadens conventional definitions of portraiture, allowing American women to be centered within the study not only as subjects, but also as patrons of art. The project demonstrates that the apparently anti-modern strain of revivalism characteristic of late nineteenth century art emerged as a reflection of US expansionist ideologies. This goal is accomplished through a series of illustrative case studies, including a discussion of Gilded Age costume balls, organized by wealthy American women, that visualized the imperial courts of pre-industrial Europe in order to legitimize their social positions. Another investigation considers the Paris studio contents of American painter John Singer Sargent, which brought his iconic painting Madame X into exhibitionary dialogue with collected Japanese export goods, as emblems of the artist’s cosmopolitan brand of empire. An analysis of society leader Alva Vanderbilt’s Pompadour bedroom by French designer Jules Allard reveals a blend of pre-industrial style produced with modern technologies, making it a space worthy of her imperial ambitions. Finally, the study examines society matriarch Alice Vanderbilt’s paradoxical Victorianism and Modernism in the context of her portrait collection. Overall, the project illuminates new definitions of cosmopolitanism and its cultural significance during the Gilded Age and considers the collaboration between female patrons and artists, placing them within the context of media circulation and a global art market where women could curate and claim their own brand of identity, one expressive of a global reaching American empire in the late nineteenth-century. / Art History

This thesis focuses on the life and artistic patronage of the Victorian philanthropist, Angela Burdett Coutts. The daughter of both an aristocrat and a member of the nouveau riche, Burdett Coutts was the product of both the new and old world of Victorian society and this thesis explores the ways in which Burdett Coutts fashioned an identity as a member of the aristocratic elite through her patronage of art and architecure. It explores the ways in which taste, gender and class are reflected in her collecting practice and examines her role as a patron through three case studies, as art collector, philanthropist and patron of architecture.

This bachelor thesis evolves around the topic of art collectors as a phenomenon throughout different centuries. Ernest Thiel was a Swedish art collector at the turn of- and early 20th- century. Tom Böttiger is a contemporary art collector who acquired his first artwork during the 80’s. Both collectors are more like than alike, which points to and enforces certain common stereotypes as to whom could be a collector and what kinds of collectors exist. This thesis compares those two collectors from different times, from an art collectors perspective. The thesis concluded that collectors often bring upon themselves to act as patrons for the artists, both by promoting and purchasing their works, but also by aiding them financially.

This thesis examines the relationship of George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham (1592--1628) to the art and aesthetic ideas of his era. As the intimate and all-powerful favourite of two successive kings, James I and Charles 1, Buckingham profoundly influenced the course of English politics, both at home and abroad, and it is as a political force that he is generally viewed. But, as a major patron of many artists and the builder of one of the largest art collections of the time, his influence in the cultural sphere must have been equally significant. Yet no modern study of this aspect of Buckingham's persona exists. / After a review of the general historiographical material on Buckingham as well as his evaluation by art historians over the years, Chapter I presents an analysis of the concept and role of Favourite in social and cultural terms. It goes on to detail Buckingham's personal position within early Stuart court culture, and argues that while this culture formed and defined him, he simultaneously re-formed and redefined it through his choices and actions. / Chapter II examines the dynamics of art patronage and Buckingham's activity as a patron, beginning with his early dealings with the native English painter, William Larkin. The relationship of Buckingham and the young Anthony Van Dyck is discussed, with parlicular attention to the artist's brief visit to England in 1620--21, and it is suggested that Buckingham was instrumental in bringing about this event. The Duke's dealings with the controversial polymath, Balthazar Gerbier, are explored, as are his many-layered connections with the premier painter of the day, Peter Paul Rubens. / In Chapter III the traditions of art collecting, especially in England are discussed, as is Buckingham's reputation as a collector compared to some of his rivals in the field. The extant documentation of his collection is examined, along with the chronology and methodology of its formation. Particular attention is given to gifts of art to Buckingham by King Charles, the Earl of Arundel and others; the art-buying by Buckingham's agents like Balthazar Gerbier; and the incorporation by the Duke into his own inventory of parts of other collections such as that of the Duke of Hamilton and, more importantly, that of Rubens. / Both in the realm of court culture and in the world of art patronage and art collecting, it was Buckingham more than anyone else who supplied the energy and set the fashion. And he continued to do so even after his premature death: the Duke's image remained bright in the memory of King Charles, whose subsequent expanded relationships with Rubens and Van Dyck owe much of their intensity to both artists' previous connections with Buckingham.

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The doctoral thesis was an study about Miquel Mai, a polític, jurist, bibliophile and art collector in Barcelona in the first half of the XVI century. The thesis presents the figure of Miquel Mai by his biographic history, with emphasis in the principals chapters that he was participant. After, there was a chapter whose principal theme its the connection between Miquel Mai and the Erasmism movement. Third, it was an analysis of all the art objects that Miquel Mai accumulates. Fourth, the thesis explores the library (formed by more than 2000 books). And finally, we studied the relationship between the art objects who decorate the library and the same books that was in the library. / Aquesta tesi és un estudi al voltant de la persona de Miquel Mai, politic, jurista, bibliòfil i col•leccionista d'art a la Barcelona de la primera meitat del segle XVI. La tesi presenta a Miquel Mai a partir del seu relat biogràfic, posant especial èmfasi en els principals capítols polítics en els que va participar. Seguidament es desenvolupa un capítol dedicat a la possible definició de Miquel Mai com a erasmista i la influència que aquest corrent espiritual va jugar al llarg de la seva vida. En tercer lloc s’analitza els inventaris de béns i tota la relació d’objectes artístics que va acumular amb el pas del temps. Un quart aspecte gira entorn a l’extensa biblioteca (més de 2000 llibres) que Miquel Mai va formar a la seva residència de la plaça de la Cucurulla de Barcelona. I en cinquè lloc es posa de manifest la relació directe entre els béns artístics que decoraven la biblioteca i les lectures que precisament es trobaven en aquesta biblioteca.