This essay deals with the valuation of art with a focus on the aura of artworks. Aura is a theory developed by art critic Walter Benjamin in the early 20th century, the aura is the ”presence”of an artwork and reflects the uniqueness and authenticity that disappears with reproduction. The questions posed to the material are whether the aura affects the economic value when valuing art and what the different factors are that influence the aura. The essay has a discourse theoretical focus where the concept of aura is central, a discourse theory deals with language and its meaning which can depend on the context. The study also draws on Benjamin's theories of the aura where the concept is a theoretical tool in analyses. An iconographic analysis and iconological interpretation has been made on selected artworks, which are then contextualized in a multilevel analysis to determine how much the aura of the work has influenced the economic value. The study shows that the aura influences the economic value and that it is an important part of the valuation process as it is influenced by uniqueness, artist and provenance.

This paper examines the painter Peh Hilleström (1732–1816) as a participant in the eighteenth century, Stockholm art market, according to the model used by Michael Baxandall in his study of Italian Renaissance art. The art market of the eighteenth century was expanding and included new groups of buyers, outside traditional patrons of art as court and aristocracy. The main purpose of the paper is to find these new art consumers. I use probate inventories from Stockholm, from the years 1735, 1775, 1795, and 1815, in which I search for annotations of paintings. The results are examined from an economic perspective, based on wealth, and a social, based on occupation and titles. Examining these four years I find a rather extensive, bourgeois, market for art, including the less well of households, and fairly independent of social status. The sources give few if any, details of the paintings listed. Hence it is not possible to connect any of the annotations in the probate inventories to Hilleström, since artists’ names are never mentioned. From some of the clues given, there is nevertheless, possible to reconstruct the outlines of what an art collection might have looked like. The wide scope of Hillestöm’s production, illustrated by the artist’s own list of his paintings, might be interpreted as a way to cater for this new market, illustrated by e.g. the frequent repetition of motives. Finally, I examine a few of Hilleström’s own paintings in the light of the previous investigation. Together the sources give a picture of a – fairly widespread – ideal of interior decoration, in which paintings are an important part.