The aim of this dissertation is to present a first statistical study of the economics of the modern art market in nineteenth-century Britain. During the reign of Queen Victoria, the arts in England experienced an unprecedented boom, and the period witnessed the emergence of modern Europe's first art market as it functions today. Through the influence of the newly emerged breed of professional picture dealers, many painters achieved celebrity status, and their works commanded unheard-of prices not equaled until the last third of the twentieth century. The period also witnessed the introduction of the first successfully produced art mass product in the form of mass marketed engravings after 'sensation' paintings This study proposes that, in addition to the conventional sociological factors, the Victorian art boom was a consequence of a process of commodification which, starting at the beginning of the eighteenth century, began to transform the English arts environment towards the gradual establishment of Europe's first art market in the modern sense This model of commodification and its use are introduced in a brief case study of the Dutch art environment of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, relying heavily on recent scholarly investigations into the economics of that region's art market. With the partial collapse of the Dutch economy towards the end of the seventeenth century, the economic center of the arts environment began to shift to England, the focus of this research. Through the application of economic models, the study illustrates how commodification occurring within the different art market components, effected specific changes which enhanced the commodity character of paintings and facilitated their exchange. It is argued that, ultimately, this commodification and its agents must be considered among the formative factors responsible for the characteristic appearance of much of English eighteenth and nineteenth-century painting. In this context, moreover, the investigation also aims to illustrate the crucial role played by middlemen in the new, market-oriented, art environment The research relies heavily on the use of statistical and micro-econometric tools with a database which consists of over forty thousand individual auction sales of paintings from around 1720 to 1910 and which was created specifically for this study. Hitherto, quantifying investigations of this type have not been undertaken in art historical research. It is one of the purposes of this study to introduce such methodology and demonstrate its merits. In addition to revealing numerous micro-aspects of the Victorian arts environment, the employment of econometric models also provides insight into macro-developments of the art market which affect our visual culture to this day / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_26114 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Contributors | Bayer, Thomas Michael (Author), Brown, Marilyn (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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