Old Masters Worldwide: Markets, Movements and Museums, 1789–1939 9781501348143, 9781501348174, 9781501348167

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Old Masters Worldwide

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Contextualizing Art Markets This series presents new, original research that reconceives the scope and function of art markets throughout history by examining them in the context of broader institutional practices, knowledge networks, social structures, collecting activities and creative strategies. In many cases, art market activities have been studied in isolation from broader themes within art history, a trend that has tended to stifle exchange across disciplinary boundaries. Contextualizing Art Markets seeks to foster increased dialogue between art historians, artists, curators, economists, gallerists and other market professionals by contextualizing art markets around the world within wider art historical discourses and institutional practices. The series has been developed in the belief that the reciprocal relation between art and finance is undergoing a period of change: artists are adopting innovative strategies for the commercial promotion of their work, auction houses are expanding their educational programmes, art fairs are attracting unprecedented audience numbers, museums are becoming global brands, private galleries are showing increasingly ‘curated’ exhibitions and collectors are establishing new exhibition spaces. As the divide between public and private practices narrows, questions about the social and ethical impact of market activities on the production, collection and reception of art have become newly pertinent. By combining trends within the broader discipline of art history with investigations of marketplace dynamics, Contextualizing Art Markets explores the imbrication of art and economics as a driving force behind the aesthetic and social development of the art world. We welcome proposals that debate these issues across a range of historical periods and geographies. Series Editor: Kathryn Brown, Loughborough University, UK Editorial Board: Véronique Chagnon-Burke, Christie’s Education, USA Christel H. Force, Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA Charlotte Galloway, Australian National University, Australia Mel Jordan, Coventry University, UK Alain Quemin, Université Paris-8, France Mark Westgarth, University of Leeds, UK

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Forthcoming Volumes in the Series: Ellen Emmet Rand: Gender, Art, and Business, edited by Alexis L. Boylan Pioneers of the Global Art Market: Paris-Based Dealer Networks, 1850–1950, edited by Christel H. Force Art Markets, Agents and Collectors: Collecting Strategies in Europe and the United States: 1550–1950, edited by Susan Bracken and Adriana Turpin Théodore Rousseau and the Rise of the Modern Art Market: An Avant-Garde Landscape Painter in Nineteenth-Century France, by Simon Kelly

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Old Masters Worldwide Markets, Movements and Museums, 1789–1939 Edited by Susanna Avery-Quash and Barbara Pezzini

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BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2020 Selection and editorial matter © Susanna Avery-Quash and Barbara Pezzini, 2020 Individual chapters © their authors, 2020 Susanna Avery-Quash and Barbara Pezzini have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xix constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover image: Auction room. London. England. Engraving, 1888 “La Ilustracion Iberica” © PRISMA ARCHIVO / Alamy Stock Photo All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Inc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. The publisher and the authors have made every effort to trace and contact all copyright holders before publication. If notified, the publisher and the authors will be pleased to rectify any errors or omissions at the earliest opportunity. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Avery-Quash, Susanna, editor. | Pezzini, Barbara, editor. Title: Old masters worldwide : markets, movements and museums, 1789-1939 / edited by Susanna Avery-Quash and Barbara Pezzini. Description: New York : Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020. | Series: Contextualizing art markets | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020032742 (print) | LCCN 2020032743 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501348143 (hardback) | ISBN 9781501348167 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501348150 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Painting, European. | Painting–Collectors and collecting–History. | Painting–Economic aspects–Europe–History. | Art galleries, Commercial–History. Classification: LCC ND450 .O43 2020 (print) | LCC ND450 (ebook) | DDC 7549.94—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020032742 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020032743 ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-4814-3 ePDF: 978-1-5013-4816-7 eBook: 978-1-5013-4815-0 Series: Contextualizing Art Markets Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

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Contents List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Series Editor’s Introduction Foreword by Gabriele Finaldi Acknowledgements Introduction Susanna Avery-Quash and Barbara Pezzini

ix xiv xv xvii xix 1

Part One Developing European Networks, 1780–1894 1 2 3 4

The European Market for Italian Old Masters after Napoleon Robert Skwirblies Old Masters from Rome to London: Alexander Day and Pietro Camuccini Pier Ludovico Puddu Selling Old Masters in Britain, France and the Netherlands: The Networking Strategies of John Smith Julia I. Armstrong-Totten A Network of Agents: Buying Old Masters for the National Gallery, London Susanna Avery-Quash

39 55 69 83

Part Two Gaining International Visibility and Expertise, 1850–1909 5 6 7 8 9

Old Masters versus Modern Art in Parisian Auctions Léa Saint-Raymond Agnew’s: From Modern Art to Old Masters Barbara Pezzini Taste or Opportunity? Durand-Ruel and Spanish Old Masters Véronique Gerard Powell Authority and Expertise in the Old Master Market: Bode and Duveen Catherine B. Scallen Scholar, Dealer and Museum Man: Robert Langton Douglas in the International Old Master Market Imogen Tedbury

101 117 131 147 161

Part Three Casting a Wider Net, 1900–1939 10 A Missed Opportunity? Goupil and the Old Masters Agnès Penot 11 Knoedler and Old Masters in America Inge Reist

181 195

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12 Trust, Friendship and Politics in the Old Master Market: Duveen and the State Art Collection of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia Jelena Todorović 13 Negotiating Old Masters for the Melbourne National Gallery Monique Webber 14 The Distant Old Masters of South Africa Jillian Carman Contributors Select Bibliography Index

211 225 241 257 261 275

List of Illustrations Figures 0.1. Graph of occurrence of the terms ‘Old Masters’, ‘Ancient Art’, ‘Primitives’ and

0.2. 0.3. 0.4. 0.5. 0.6. 0.7. 1.1.

1.2.

1.3.

1.4. 1.5.

2.1. 2.2.

‘Art Treasures’ in the period 1780–1939. Google Books. Photograph by the author. Rembrandt, The Mill, 1645–8. Oil on canvas, 87.6 × 105.6 cm. Courtesy of National Gallery of Art, Washington. ‘The Holford Sale’, Illustrated London News, 28 March 1928, pp. 343–4. Photograph by the author. Advertisement for Shirleys in Boulevard Malesherbes, Paris, The Burlington Magazine, December 1906, s.p. Photograph by the author. Advertisement for the Marlborough Gallery in Duke Street, London, American Art News, 10 May 1913, p. 6. Photograph by the author. Advertisement for Duveen, The Burlington Magazine, May 1906, s.p. Photograph by the author. Advertisement for Agnew’s, The Burlington Magazine, March 1909, s.p. Photograph by the author. Announcement for a public auction of 1,879 paintings and prints in Venice, 1813. Print, format unknown. Venice, Archivio di Stato, Direzione dipartimentale del Demanio, Edwards’ folders, vol. 1, n.p. Photograph by the author. Bartolomeo Ramenghi, called Bagnacavallo, Madonna with Saints Alo and P etronius, c. 1500–30. Oil on wood, 195 × 172 cm. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. © Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie. Anonymous, after Giorgione, The Finding of the Holy Cross, c. 1817. Unknown etcher. Print, format unknown. Berlin, Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, HA I, Rep. 76, I, sect. 30, no. 47, vol. 2, fol. 109. © Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Girolamo da Treviso, after Baldassarre Peruzzi, The Adoration of the Kings, 1523–4. Oil on wood, 144.2 × 125.7 cm. © The National Gallery, London. An art dealer’s leaflet, 1827. Print, 30 × 17 cm. Berlin, Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, HA I, Rep. 76, I, sect. 30, no. 47, vol. 5, fol. 30. © Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Pietro Camuccini, Self-Portrait, before 1790. Oil on canvas, dimensions unknown. Formerly Cantalupo in Sabina, Camuccini Collection. Andrea Mantegna, Adoration of the Shepherds, shortly after 1450. Tempera on canvas, transferred from wood, 40 × 55.6 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

6 9 13 16 17 19 19

40

41

46 47

48 56

58

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List of Illustrations

2.3. Raphael, The Madonna and Child with the Infant Baptist (The Garvagh Madonna,

2.4.

2.5.

3.1. 3.2.

3.3. 3.4. 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. 4.5.

5.1a.

5.1b.

5.2. 5.3.

5.4a.

also known as The Aldobrandini Madonna), c. 1509–10. Oil on wood, 38.9 × 32.9 cm. The National Gallery, London. Photograph © Scala Firenze, 2018/The National Gallery, London. 60 Domenichino, The Vision of Saint Jerome, before 1603. Oil on canvas, 51.1 × 39.8 cm. The National Gallery, London. Photograph © Scala Firenze, 2018/ The National Gallery, London. 60 Annibale Carracci, Christ Appearing to Saint Peter on the Appian Way (Domine, Quo Vadis?), 1601–2. Oil on wood, 77.4 × 56.3 cm. The National Gallery, London. Photograph © Scala Firenze, 2018/The National Gallery, London. 61 Moses Haughton Jr., Portrait of John Smith, n.d. Watercolour on ivory, 15.9 × 12.7 cm. © Trustees of the British Museum, London. 69 Distribution list, loose paper from Etienne Le Roy, Catalogue du Cabinet de Tableaux Anciens, des Ecoles Flamande, Hollandaise et Française . . . de feu M. François-Théodore Rochard, A Bruxelles, Grande Place, No 18, le mercredi 7 et le jeudi 8 avril 1858. Getty Research Institute Archives, Los Angeles. 72 John Frederick Lewis, Thomas Emmerson Seated at a Table in an Interior, c. 1829. Watercolour, 52.6 × 42.5 cm. Karen Taylor Fine Art. 73 Johan Coenraad Hamburger, Portrait of Albertus Brondgeest, 1841. Pencil and ink, 17.1 × 12.8 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 76 Letter from Samuel Woodburn with suggested conditions for employment by the National Gallery, 4 November 1845. Photo © The National Gallery, London. 85 Letter from Samuel Woodburn with suggested conditions for employment by the National Gallery, 4 November 1845. Photo © The National Gallery, London. 87 Page 15 verso of Otto Mündler’s travel diary, dated December 1855. National Gallery Archive, London. Photo © The National Gallery, London. 89 Paolo Veronese, The Family of Darius before Alexander, 1565–7. Oil on canvas, 236.2 × 474.9 cm. © The National Gallery, London. 90 Diary of Federico Sacchi, dated 23 November–19 December 1869, and his book of travelling expenses, dated 27 April 1866–24 August 1867. Photo © The National Gallery, London. 92 Number of works of art sold at auction in Paris, 1831–1925 according to their classification in the sale catalogues (modern/old/unspecified). Compiled by the author. 102 Share of works of art sold at auction in Paris, 1831–1925 according to their classification in the sale catalogues (paintings/graphic arts/sculptures/ unspecified works of art). Compiled by the author. 103 Changes in the quantities of works by the main national schools in 1850, 1900 and 1925. Compiled by the author. 104 Nicolas Poussin, The Infant Bacchus Entrusted to the Nymphs of Nysa; The Death of Echo and Narcissus, 1657. Oil on canvas, 122.6 × 180.5 cm. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Cambridge. © President and Fellows of Harvard College. 106 Difference between the average hammer price of Old Master paintings ‘by’ an artist, and the average hammer price of the other categories, 1831–1925. Compiled by the author. 107

List of Illustrations

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5.4b. Difference between the highest hammer price of Old Master paintings ‘by’

5.5. 6.1.

6.2.

6.3.

6.4.

6.5.

7.1. 7.2. 7.3.

7.4.

8.1. 8.2. 8.3.

8.4. 9.1.

an artist, and the highest hammer price of the other categories, 1831–1925. Compiled by the author. Rembrandt van Rijn, The Toilet of Bathsheba, 1643. Oil on wood, 57.2 × 76.2 cm. The Metropolitan Museum, New York. Thomas Gainsborough, Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, 1787. Oil on canvas, 101.6 × 127 cm. Chatsworth House, Derbyshire. Photograph by the author. Illustration from T. W. Wilson, ‘A Sale at Christie’s’, Magazine of Art, vol. 11, 1888, p. 229. William Agnew is represented standing in the first row. Photograph by the author. Composite of images from the Agnew’s Stock Books for 1880–3, showing a new attention to attribution. The National Gallery Archive, London. Photograph by the author. Henry Jamyn Brooks, The Private View of the Royal Academy 1888 Old Masters Exhibition, 1889. Oil on canvas, 154.5 cm × 271.5 cm. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Bernardo Bellotto (formerly attributed to Canaletto), Il Campo di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, 1743–7. Oil on canvas, 70.8 × 111 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Agustín Esteve y Marqués. Portrait of a Young Woman Holding Two Roses, c. 1790. Oil on canvas, 103 × 82 cm. Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s. Manner of Goya, Portrait of a Woman, with a Guitar, undated. Oil on canvas, 166.7 × 116.8 cm. © The Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota. Jean Laurent, The Death of Laocoön by El Greco, photograph, 1868–72, Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, VN-07599 © Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, Fototeca del Patrimonio Histórico, Madrid. Anonymous, Francisco Goya’s Majas on a Balcony, c. 1911. Albumen print, mounted on board with the name of Durand-Ruel Gallery, 17.4 × 64.4 cm. Private Collection. Archive Enriqueta Frankfort Harris, London. Reprinted with permission. Photographer unknown, Wilhelm von Bode, 1925. Photograph by the author. Photographer unknown, Sir Joseph Duveen, 1920s. Photograph by the author. Giovanni Bellini, Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist, c. 1465–70. Oil on panel, 71.2 x 62.4 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photograph by the author. Imitator of Johannes Vermeer, The Smiling Girl, c. 1925. Oil on canvas, 41 x 31.8 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Ugolino di Nerio, Fragments from the Santa Croce Altarpiece. Left: The Flagellation and The Entombment, both 34.5 × 53 cm. Above right: Saints Matthew, Elizabeth of Hungary, Mattias, James the Lesser, James the Greater and Philip. Below right: Saints John the Baptist, Paul and Peter, 1325–8, 191.6 × 61.5 cm. Gold and tempera on wood. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie/ Imogen Tedbury; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie/Property of Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein/Imogen Tedbury.

108 109

120

121

124

125

126 133 134

138

139 148 148

151 155

165

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List of Illustrations

9.2. Photograph after 1911 of fragments from the Santa Croce Altarpiece by

9.3.

9.4.

9.5.

10.1.

10.2. 10.3.

Ugolino di Nerio. Top: Saints James the Greater and Philip, Mattias and James the Lesser, and Matthew and Elizabeth of Hungary. Middle: Saints Paul, Peter and John the Baptist. Bottom: The Flagellation and The Entombment. © The Art Quarterly/Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie/Property of Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein. Matteo di Giovanni, Virgin and Child with Saint Sebastian, Saint Francis and Angels, c. 1480–90. Tempera and gold on panel, 51.3 × 39.7cm. National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh. Photograph by the author. Silvestro dei Gherarducci, The Assumption of Saint Mary Magdalene, 1380s. Tempera and gold leaf on wood panel. National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. Photo © National Gallery of Ireland. Old Master purchases vs total purchases, 1846–1919. Compiled by the author. Data from the Goupil/Boussod & Valadon Stock Books, 1846–1919, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. Old Master purchases vs total purchases, 1846–1919. Compiled by the author. Data from the Goupil/Boussod & Valadon Stock Books, 1846–1919, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. Photogravure by Goupil & Cie of Albert Goupil’s Renaissance Room, 1884. Musée Goupil, Bordeaux. Anthony van Dyck, Isabella, Lady de la Warr, c. 1638. Oil on canvas, 213.4 × 137.2 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

10.4. Anthony van Dyck, Isabella, Lady de la Warr, c. 1638. 10.5. Charles-Albert Waltner after Rembrandt van Rijn, La Ronde de Nuit (De Nachtwacht), 1885. Engraving published by Boussod, Valadon & Cie.

167

169

171

172

182 184 185 189 190

11.1. Albumen print of the interior of M. Knoedler & Co., 170 Fifth Avenue, corner of 22nd Street, New York, c. 1860–80. New York Public Library.

196

11.2. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, 1658. Oil on canvas, 133.7 × 103.8 cm. The Frick Collection, New York.

198

11.3. Diego Velázquez, King Philip IV of Spain, 1644. Oil on canvas, 129.9 × 99.4 cm. The Frick Collection, New York.

199

11.4. Joseph Mallord William Turner, Mortlake Terrace, 1827. Oil on canvas,

11.5.

12.1. 12.2. 12.3. 12.4.

92.1 × 122.2 cm. Andrew W. Mellon Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington. Knoedler Stock Books. Book 7, Stock No. 16171, p. 92, row 27: ‘Tiziano Vecellio. Venus and Adonis, lot 79 52 × 41¾ [in.]. £2415/Our half Share £1207.10 ($11736.90/$5868.45). April 1927. Jules Bache. City. 25. $80,000’. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. The State Art Collection in the Royal Palace at Dedinje, Belgrade. Photograph by the author. The interior of the White Palace, Belgrade, 1936. State Art Collection, Belgrade. Archives of Yugoslavia, Belgrade. Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with Three Monks (La Solitude), 1648–50. Oil on canvas, 117 × 93 cm. State Art Collection, Belgrade. Palma Il Vecchio, Holy Family with Saint John, Saint Catherine and a Donor, c. 1526. Oil on panel, 104 × 167 cm. State Art Collection, Belgrade.

201

201 215 216 219 220

List of Illustrations

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12.5. Domenico Beccafumi, The Flight of Cloelia, c. 1530. Oil on panel, 122 × 74 cm. 220

State Art Collection, Belgrade.

13.1. Frederick Grosse and Oswald Rose Campbell, The Sculpture Gallery, Melbourne,

13.2.

13.3. 13.4.

14.1. 14.2.

14.3.

14.4.

14.5.

1866. Wood engraving from The Australian News for Home Readers, 27 July 1866. State Library of Victoria, Melbourne. Flemish, Virgin and Child, mid-fifteenth century. Oil on wood, 26.3 × 19.4 cm. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. National Gallery of Victoria/ Wikimedia. Postcard of The National Gallery of Victoria, The Stawell Gallery, c. 1910. State Library of Victoria, Melbourne. Anthony van Dyck, Rachel de Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton, c. 1640. O il on canvas and wood, 222.4 × 131.6 cm. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. National Gallery of Victoria/Wikimedia. William Orpen, Otto Beit in His Study at Belgrave Square, 1910–13. Oil on canvas, 81.5 × 76.3 cm. Johannesburg Art Gallery. Frans Hals, Portrait of a Woman, 1644. Oil on canvas, 76 × 63 cm. Michaelis Collection, Cape Town. Iziko Museums of South Africa Art Collections. Photograph by Michael Hall. Jan Steen, As the Singing Leads, So the Dancing Follows (The Dancing Dog), 1660s. Oil on panel, 89 × 74 cm. Michaelis Collection, Cape Town. Iziko Museums of South Africa Art Collections. Photograph by Michael Hall. Paulus Moreelse, Portrait of a Four-Year-Old Boy with a Club and Ball, 1611. Oil on canvas, 117 × 84 cm. Cape Town, Michaelis Collection, MC33/9. Iziko Museums of South Africa Art Collections. Photograph by Michael Hall. Rembrandt van Rijn, The Three Crosses, 1653. Engraving, 36.5 × 45 cm. ohannesburg Art Gallery.

226

229 231

233 243

246

247

248 250

Table 3.1 John Smith’s network of dealers by city. Compiled by the author.

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The publisher and the authors have made every effort to trace and contact all copyright holders before publication. If notified, the publisher and the authors will be pleased to rectify any errors or omissions at the earliest opportunity.

List of Abbreviations AECR

Archivio Eredi Camuccini di Roma, Rome, Italy

ASBr

Archivio Storico dell’Accademia di Brera, Milan, Italy

ASGF

Archivio Storico delle Gallerie Fiorentine, Florence, Italy

ASR

Archivio di Stato di Roma, Rome, Italy

ASV

Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Venice, Italy

BFAC

Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, UK

GRI

Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California, USA

HCF

Henry Clay Frick Papers, The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives, New York, USA

JAG

Archives of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

JRL

John Rylands Library, Manchester, UK

Knoedler

M. Knoedler & Co. Records, c. 1848–1971, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California, USA

NGA

Archives of the National Gallery, London, UK

NGIA

Archives of the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland

NLI

National Library of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland

SMB-ZA

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Zentral Archiv, Berlin, Germany

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Series Editor’s Introduction Art markets are powerful prisms through which to view changing conceptions of social, cultural and aesthetic values. As the present volume shows, the emergence of a market for Old Master paintings from the eighteenth to the twentieth century offers significant insight into these themes and the art-historical factors with which they are in dialogue. Susanna Avery-Quash and Barbara Pezzini have drawn together a group of leading international scholars to offer new perspectives on the trade of Old Master paintings and its contribution to histories of commerce, institutional collecting and wealth creation. Through a selection of case studies that showcase the interrelated activities of private individuals and public institutions, this volume traces the development of a market for Old Master paintings from the French Revolution to the outbreak of the Second World War. Two major social upheavals bookend the narrative, thereby signalling the role that pivotal moments of disorder can play in stimulating the movement of goods, the migration of peoples and the dispersal (and theft) of cultural heritage. Within such large-scale narratives, however, the lives and activities of specific individuals come to the fore. The activities of dealers not just in buying and selling Old Master paintings, but also in shaping scholarly and commercial discourses about them, are crucial to the market developments traced throughout this book. Essays benefit from and showcase a range of new primary sources, particularly dealer archives, that have only recently become available. Yet, dealers constitute only one facet of the complex agential network in this market, and essays also debate the important roles played by collectors, patrons, museum professionals and publics in determining the trajectory of this dynamic cultural economy. In addition to its contribution to histories concerning the circulation and trade in Old Master paintings, the present volume demonstrates the relevance of the past to our understanding of contemporary art markets and the factors that influence them. In their examination of specific cases, authors signal approaches to art transactions that resonate strongly with current practices and concerns. Dealers’ need to implement effective branding and marketing strategies, the use of private galleries as tourist destinations, the spreading of risk across different commercial platforms and the uneasy relationship between markets and museums are just some of the issues that shaped international trade in Old Master paintings and that continue to impact on the functioning of art markets today. Beyond their contribution to historical research, the essays in this volume thus have the potential to influence scholarly approaches to the ways in which art markets continue to operate across a range of platforms. One of the aims of the Contextualizing Art Markets series is to examine the relationship between art markets and broader institutional practices, knowledge networks, social structures, collecting activities and creative strategies. In keeping with xv

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this ambition, the present volume shows how the very notion of ‘Old Master’ painting came into being and how that term was understood, valued and gendered in different cultural frameworks. More importantly, however, the book also explores a range of sociopolitical issues that arose as the term ‘Old Master’ and its associated artefacts were transposed into the cultural settings of former European colonies and newly founded countries. In such cases, methods for determining value, negotiating difference and creating audiences reveal tensions that extended far beyond monetary transactions. As Avery-Quash and Pezzini argue in their Introduction, the global market for Old Master paintings was deeply implicated in discourses of nationhood and often played a role in shaping or contesting colonial narratives. By revealing cases of social injustice and problematizing histories of international relations, the following essays demonstrate the wider significance of art market studies in the humanities. It gives me great pleasure to welcome this volume into this series. Kathryn Brown Lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture Loughborough University

Foreword The study of the art market is a comparatively new field of art historical investigation, even more recent than the related branch of the history of collecting. Traditionally, dealers have been rather overlooked in histories of art, which have tended to focus on collectors or scholars, but now their important critical perspective is being recuperated. This is motivated partly because provenance has become a key concern in both the commercial art world and academia, and partly because dealer archives have started to become available for study. Such resources enable new insights not only into business processes and provenances but also into the creation of taste and the reception of certain styles. This is an exciting development for public art institutions like the National Gallery because it allows the pictures’ provenance histories to be told more fully, given that dealers were an important force not only in the propulsion of artistic currents but also, together with collectors, in the creation of museums. The National Gallery has played an important role in this new field over the last decade. It partnered with the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles between 2009 and 2016 to undertake a two-stage research project, led by Susanna Avery-Quash at the Gallery and Christian Huemer at the Getty, to investigate historical British art auctions for the period 1680–1800. The new data from these sales, when combined with the Getty’s existing nineteenth-century records (1800–40), means that the Getty’s databases now cover a continuous span of British sales from 1680 to 1840. The partner institutions also organized a conference, ‘London and the Emergence of a European Art Market (c. 1780–1820)’, at the Gallery on 20–21 June 2013, and recently Avery-Quash and Huemer have edited a volume arising from that conference, London and the Emergence of a European Art Market, 1780–1820 (Getty Publications, 2019). The Gallery has been pursuing its interests in the historic art market in other exciting ways, too. For one thing, it has invested in important art market archives. The National Gallery acquired in February 2014 the business papers of Thos. Agnew & Sons, one of the most significant dealers on the international art market of the day. The records, dating from the 1850s to the firm’s change of ownership in 2013, include information about many important sales, some of which can be cross-referenced with material in other archives, not least the Getty Research Institute that houses material relating to the Knoedler and Duveen dealerships. Ever since acquiring the Agnew & Sons archive, the National Gallery has been conserving and cataloguing its holdings; it has now made available digitally the Picture Stock Books from 1853 to 1920. More recently, in the summer of 2018, the Gallery purchased a substantial portion of the important archive of Leeds art dealers and estate agents Hollis & Webb. It includes notebooks containing detailed inventories relating to probate valuations dating from the 1910s to the 1940s of major country houses in Northern England, sometimes also including the London town houses of the same owners. Among the properties covered xvii

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Foreword

are Kirkham Hall (Lord Brotherton), Yarrowby Hall (Lord Halifax) and Aske Hall (Marquess Zetland). In addition to purchasing, preserving and digitizing primary archival materials, the National Gallery set up two government-funded doctoral partnerships in Britain at the universities of Manchester and Liverpool, to facilitate systematic and in-depth research into the Agnew & Sons archive. One of the two researchers was Barbara Pezzini, who examined the relationship between the Gallery and Agnew’s and how this firm influenced the formation of the national picture collection. Other postgraduate teaching has taken the form of a Masters course in the History of the Art Market and Collecting, a five-year collaboration with the University of Buckingham and in association with Waddesdon Manor (Rothschild Collections) from 2014. A key feature was the heavy use made of the Agnew & Sons archive as well as that of P. & D. Colnaghi, Ltd, housed since February 2014 in the Windmill Hill Archive, Waddesdon Manor. The Agnew & Sons archive has also been a focal point for a number of conferences hosted either at the National Gallery or by Gallery staff beyond the confines of Trafalgar Square. In association with the University of Manchester, the Gallery organized a conference on 1–2 April 2016 on the topic of ‘Negotiating Art: Art dealers and Museums, 1855–2015’, which marked the completion of the Agnew’s cataloguing project mentioned above. A couple of months later, in July 2016, Christie’s auctioneers organized ‘Creating Market: Collecting Art’, a two-day event to celebrate the 250th anniversary of its foundation, where Avery-Quash convened a panel about the rise of the Old Master dealer, with papers once again drawing on material from dealer archives, including Agnew’s and Colnaghi’s. The findings presented at that conference have been developed by Dr Avery-Quash and Dr Pezzini into the current volume, with additional contributions to enrich the narrative. I hope that Old Masters Worldwide: Markets, Movements and Museums, 1789–1939 will encourage further interdisciplinary, international exchanges and new ways of thinking about the historic art market. Gabriele Finaldi Director The National Gallery, London

Acknowledgements Special, heartfelt thanks are due to Nicholas Penny and Mark Westgarth for their many perceptive suggestions they shared concerning the book’s Introduction. We are also very grateful to Alison Bennett for her excellent help with proofreading the manuscript and for Roza I.M. El-Eini for copy-editing it; to April Peake, Margaret Michniewicz, Merv Honeywood, Anita Iannacchione, Kathryn Brown, the ‘Contextualizing Art Markets’ series editor, and their colleagues at Bloomsbury Academic publishing house, who offered us constant first-rate assistance with all aspects of the book’s production. The two peer reviewers employed by Bloomsbury provided us with invaluable feedback, which we have done our best to act on. We would also like to record our thanks to our colleagues at the National Gallery Research Centre, Alan Crookham, Jonathan Franklin, Nicola Kennedy, Zara Moran and Richard Wragg. We remain most grateful for the many stimulating conversations we have had with colleagues that have helped to shape this book. In particular, we would like to thank: Charlotte Avery, Jan Dirk Baetens, Patrizia Cappellini, James Carleton Paget, Lynn Catterson, Meaghan Clarke, Julie Codell, Jonathan Conlin, Silvia Davoli, Caroline Elam, Pamela Fletcher, Tom Flynn, Antoinette Friedenthal, Lukas Fuchsgruber, Flaminia Gennari Santori, Elena Greer, Anne Helmreich, Jeremy Howard, Scott Howie, Rebecca Lyons, Max Marmor, Marco Mascolo, Alycen Mitchell, Johannes Nathan, Elizabeth Pergam, Inge Reist, Michael Ripps, Samuel Shaw, Nicola Sinclair, Julia Snape, Tom Stammers, Andrew Stephenson, Marie Tavinor, Paul Tucker, Adriana Turpin, Olav Velthuis, Francesco Ventrella, Lucy West, Matthias Wivel, Fulvia Zaninelli and the Board Members of both the International Art Market Studies Association and the Society for the History of Collecting. We would also like to express our gratitude to all our authors for sharing their research and for the punctuality and fullness with which they responded to our numerous queries over the twenty-four months in which this book has been in production. Susanna Avery-Quash and Barbara Pezzini

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Introduction Susanna Avery-Quash and Barbara Pezzini

This collection of essays is the first book-length study on ‘Old Master’ pictures, the sector of the art market dedicated to historic European painting. This is a type of art which nowadays includes much admired masterpieces in museums around the world by artists such as Raphael, Poussin, Rubens, Velázquez and Gainsborough, and which sustains art history courses and specialist publications as well as mass-driven outputs such as films, novels, reproductions and household objects. The original paintings that inspire these outputs are currently positioned in the pantheon of art history and at the high end of the art market. Although modern and contemporary art today routinely experience record prices at auction, the Old Master market also commands arresting sums. Even if the 2017 sale of a Salvator Mundi attributed to Leonardo for £340 million was perhaps exceptional, in 2004 Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks sold for £22 million, while in 2016 Rubens’ Lot and His Daughters was bought for £44 million. Surprisingly, there has been no study describing how and when such an important market developed. This volume takes up the challenge and follows the story of the Old Master market as a global business through a momentous century-and-a-half of its development – arguably the most significant period in its history. It starts with the new situation in the European picture trade created by the French Revolution of 1789 and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars (1803–15), a period that witnessed a redistribution of paintings as the result of war, looting, speculation, sale and gift. It ends 150 years later, with the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the sudden contraction in world finance following the stock market crash of 1929, a shake-up that went on to disrupt the Old Master market dramatically in terms of size and value. This profound market transformation was accelerated by the Second World War (1939–45) – indeed, it was only in the 1950s that the trade in Old Masters started to recover.1 This collection of essays does not claim to capture in full the complex history of the Old Master market; rather it aims to highlight its broad transformations and growing complexities, and to draw attention to this particular market’s character, defining its distinctiveness in relation to other sections of the trade. The operators of this market, the art dealers, are the book’s principal focus: the type of gallery they developed, their commercial dynamics, advertising style and their specialist expertise are crucial aspects of the book’s investigation. The key moments of this complex commerce are discussed chronologically and geographically, encompassing the movement of Old Master 1

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Introduction

paintings from Europe to the United States of America, South Africa and Australia. The book recounts successes and expansion but also failures and contractions. It presents a tale of intense modernization and profound transformation but also of deep-seated persistence. Some aspects of the Old Master market – such as its visibility, the reach of its markets, the composition of its buyers and its relationship with the public sphere – changed significantly, while others – such as its being a small, relatively niche yet highly priced sector, often entered into to gain social status and as financial investment – remained, almost obstinately, unchanged.

Approaches Pamela Fletcher and Anne Helmreich have recently stated that there is no such thing as ‘the art market’ but rather many different markets. They suggest that it would be fruitful for researchers to employ an ‘ecosystem model of the market’, whilst being mindful that its structures, agents and behaviours are in constant flux.2 They enumerate a set of questions to help with the mapping of any historical market: Once the contours and context of ‘the market’ in a particular case are established, a model would then require identification of the most important variables within that configuration and the rules that govern their actions and interactions. What are the available identities – agents, intermediaries, consumers, etc. and their roles – within a given market, and who filled them? What were the primary institutions and mechanisms by which objects entered, circulated, produced meaning and were assigned forms of value within the field?3

This book has utilized a similar set of research questions to investigate its chosen focus: the circulation of historic European painting in the long nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, its agents, operations and legacy. This is a subject that, so far, has not been comprehensively investigated. There has been much recent research into the nineteenth-century art market in relation to modern art, comprehensive studies which set new methodological parameters, for instance in their consideration of markets as cultural and social networks, observations that are equally applicable to the Old Master market.4 Some earlier publications that concentrated on preceding stages of this market, however, are useful reference points and serve as preludes to the material presented here. Notably, Iain Pears’ ground-breaking examination of the growth of interest in painting by the British in the century after 1680, and Louise Lippincott’s study of the early-eighteenthcentury British art world through the activities of the dealer Arthur Pond (1701–58).5 Aspects of the historical Old Master Market have been thoroughly investigated, especially in relation to the Italian Old Masters, by Linda Borean, Donata Levi and Nicholas Penny.6 The last decade has also witnessed a surge of interest in the history of the UK art market, albeit largely for earlier periods than the one covered in this book or relating to areas of trade other than the Old Masters. An exception is Susanna Avery-Quash and Christian Huemer’s 2019 volume on the advent of London as the preeminent art market in the period 1780–1820, the timeframe of which dovetails with the one covered here.7 The

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history of the Old Master market in the United States has likewise become the subject of scholarly interest, due to the scholarship of Inge Reist, among others.8 The historic art market in other parts of the globe has started to be investigated, too, for instance South Africa’s early-twentieth-century history by Jillian Carman and Morna O’Neill.9 Jan Dirk Baetens and Dries Lyna have recently co-edited a volume dedicated to the internationalization of the art market, a theme that cuts across both space and time.10 This book has directly and indirectly benefitted from the many studies of the art market that combine historical analysis with economics, statistics and, more recently, geomapping and network analysis. In 1982, John Michael Montias wrote the first statistics-based study of art as a tradeable commodity, Artists and Artisans in Delft, a ground-breaking book that analysed how supply and demand contributed to art production.11 Montias’ method was adopted to interpret art market behaviour in the early modern period by scholars such as Neil De Marchi, Hans van Miegroet and Filip Vermeylen.12 Grischka Petri has used similar methods to analyse the business data and prices of works by James Whistler, while Thomas Bayer and John Page have presented a comprehensive analysis of the British art market, basing their study solely on the statistical analysis gleaned from Christie’s sales.13 Pamela Fletcher and Anne Helmreich have utilized data from the Getty Provenance Index® to analyse the networks of modern art galleries in the nineteenth century.14 New research that follows these methods continues to be published.15 Most recently, Barbara Pezzini and Alan Crookham have applied Bayer and Page’s econometric methods to analyse Agnew’s stock books.16 The analysis of art sales is a backbone of the literature on the art market and has sustained much of the scholarship in this voume: from George Redford and Algernon Graves, who compiled pricing information from auctions in the long nineteenth century; to William Roberts’ description of the most important sales at Christie’s; to Frits Lugt’s volumes which list more than 100,000 European and American art auctions from 1600 to 1900; to Gerard Reitlinger’s analysis of prices from 1760 to 1960; and, finally, Burton Fredericksen’s pioneering compilation, index and analysis of British and Netherlandish Old Master sales in the nineteenth century.17 Equally important is dealers’ correspondence. Some recent editions of these complement Hugh Brigstocke’s early transcription of letters from the Scottish dealer William Buchanan (1777–1864) to his agents and business partners.18 For instance, Charles Sebag-Montefiore and Julia Armstrong-Totten published letters between John Smith (1781–1855) and his family members, and Paul Tucker published correspondence between Charles Fairfax Murray (1849–1919) and museum directors in Germany and the United Kingdom.19 Sales records and correspondence nuance the personal accounts found in dealers’ biographies or autobiographies, such as Buchanan’s memoirs of 1824 and James Henry Duveen’s (1873–) published in 1935 and 1938.20 Research concerning other art world professionals, namely auctioneers, art critics, curators and artists, is relevant to this volume because of their interactions with the Old Master market. For instance, there are Francis Russell and Linda McLeod’s publications on the auctioneer James Christie (1730–1804), Jeremy Howard’s on the firm of P&D Colnaghi, Susanna Avery-Quash’s on Martin Colnaghi (1821–1908) and Pezzini’s studies of the Old Master market and the art periodical, and on smaller Old Master galleries.21 A conference in 2016 at the National Gallery, London, explored key relationships between art dealers and museums across Europe and the

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United States in the period 1850–2015, and in 2018 the methods used by dealers active in the American market during the period 1880–1930 were examined at a symposium, organized by the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, CA.22 But perhaps the most crucial catalyst of this book was given by the wealth of fresh primary sources made available through newly accessible dealers’ archives – such as those held at the National Gallery, London (Agnew’s), the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (Knoedler, Duveen and Tooth), and Windmill Hill Archive at Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire (P&D Colnaghi).23 Some of these, as well as other important primary sources relating to the art market, are now available digitally. A long-standing and robust search engine is the Getty Provenance Index® that, thanks to several research collaborations (including one with the National Gallery that focused on historic British art sales, 1680–1800) now contains a wealth of data concerning art sales that took place in numerous European countries over several centuries. The stock books and other archival documents of Goupil, Knoedler and Duveen have been put online by the Getty Research Institute; the National Gallery has provided digital copies of over sixty years’ worth of Agnew’s stock books; and the RKD (Netherlands Institute for Art History) is in the process of digitalizing the archives of Goupil’s branch in The Hague. Among other online initiatives of relevance to this book are Fletcher and David Israel’s The London Gallery Project, an interactive digital map of London’s nineteenth-century art market that contains much fresh information on individual galleries and their exhibitions; Mark Westgarth’s Antique Dealer Project website; the Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America at the Frick Collection, New York; and the Salons et expositions de groups, 1673–1914 database, set up by the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Art, cultural and market historians continue to develop data-driven and computationally intensive approaches as means of shedding light on the bigger picture of the circulation of art across the globe. They address questions such the actual size of a particular market, or what buyer preferences were across various markets at any given time, and how those tastes influenced the work of particular painters, types of paintings and pricing. Such research complements the in-depth analysis concerning, for example, an individual dealer’s modus operandi during a particular timeframe, which traditional case studies are well placed to answer. Scholars have come to recognize the advantages to be derived from utilizing both approaches. Consequently, this book, like some others before it, seeks to synthesize this dual approach. An advantage of producing a multiauthored publication in a field as uncharted as the one under investigation here, is that varied approaches and methodologies can be brought to bear on each other in fruitful ways, with the end result greater than the sum of its parts.

Parameters of the Old Masters Definition This book, ultimately, describes the creation of a new field of professional practice – that is, the commerce of the art of the past – and how this new field developed its own spaces, structures and, most importantly, its own definition as the Old Master market.24

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5

Although ‘Old Masters’ is a term found twice in John Evelyn’s diaries, in 1684 and 1696, it was not adopted generally until the mid-nineteenth century. In fact, it is in the period examined here that the ‘Old Masters’ became the conventional shorthand for the most esteemed painters of the historical European tradition.25 This is not a casual correlation: the increased usage of ‘Old Masters’ coincided with the growth in the commerce of historical art. Before ‘Old Masters’ became the accepted term there had been many different ways to describe the most esteemed art of the past. A term often found in scholarly literature and sale catalogues is ‘primitive’, which was applied specifically to the earliest forms of European art, including Italian and Netherlandish art of the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, initially with derogatory connotations as crude and unsophisticated.26 ‘Art Treasures’ was also is use, a term principally associated with the mid-nineteenth century, when the German museum director and art historian Gustav Waagen (1794– 1868) adopted it throughout his survey of great UK art collections, Treasures of Art in Great Britain.27 The Manchester exhibition of 1857, which showcased art of the past and present, was titled ‘Art Treasures of Great Britain’ in deliberate reference to Waagen’s text.28 However, the term never seems to have been used to stand in solely for historic European art and covered generally any work deemed to be of great worth. More pertinently to the Old Masters, in the eighteenth century, the great artists of the sixteenth century were usually called ‘ancient’ – the same adjective that was applied to what we now call ancient art (i.e. the pre-medieval art of older civilizations such as Egypt, Greece and Rome). In eighteenth-century sales described as of ‘Ancient and Modern Masters of Europe’, ‘modern’ most often referred to works by artists of the seventeenth century and later. All other painters were ‘ancient’.29 When is it that the ‘modern’ was deemed to become ‘ancient’? Ongoing discussions disputed which painters were deemed worthy of having ancient status bestowed upon them, and when. This had to do with the perceived quality of their output as well as time passing, as, for instance, seen in the debates around the ‘new’ Old Masters, such as John Constable from the 1820s.30 In the course of the nineteenth century, ‘Old Masters’, a term that was used first to describe the sales of older art, surpassed the use of ‘ancient’. The graph provided here (Fig. 0.1) shows the use in literature and printed matter of the terms ‘Old Masters’, ‘Ancient Art’, ‘Primitives’ and ‘Art Treasures’ in the period 1780–1945.31 It illustratates clearly the steep rise of the term ‘Old Masters’ up to the 1900, and its subsequent decline, which plummeted further after the Great Depression of the 1930s.32 Between 1800 and 1820, the terms ‘Old Masters’, ‘Ancient Art’ and ‘Primitives’ were all having a surge and recorded similarly high levels of usage, with ‘Primitives’ declining from the 1820s (‘Primitives’ rose again post-1900, when the term became associated, differently, with modern art). Both ‘Old Masters’ and ‘Ancient Art’ were also growing steadily in parallel, with ‘Ancient Art’ having greater occurrences. It is around 1850 that the frequency of ‘Old Masters’ surpassed ‘Ancient Art’, which had already begun its decline. The graph also traces the adoption of ‘Art Treasures’, in parallel with Waagen’s usage from the mid-nineteenth century, showing a rise from 1900 onwards, in parallel with the growing interest for national heritage, defined as the country’s ‘Art Treasures’. Another point worth making whilst mapping a definition of the term is that, even if Old Masters is undoubtedly a gendered definition, the term also included

6 0.000120% 0.000110% 0.000100% 0.000090% 0.000080% 0.000070% 0.000060% 0.000050% 0.000040% 0.000030% 0.000020% 0.000010% 0.000000% 1780

Introduction

Primitives Old masters Art treasures Ancient art

1800

1820

1840

1860

1880

1900

1920

1940

Fig. 0.1 Graph of occurrence of the terms ‘Old Masters’, ‘Ancient Art’, ‘Primitives’ and ‘Art Treasures’ in the period 1780–1939. Google Books. Photograph by the author.

women painters of distinction. Artists such as Angelika Kauffmann, Elizabeth Vigée Lebrun, Judith Leyster and Artemisia Gentileschi were always considered collectable as ‘Old Mistresses’, to use the term coined by Griselda Pollock and Rozsika Parker.33

Scope Historical European painting was early on subdivided into geographical categories, traditionally defined as national and regional ‘schools’. Schools were part of a hierarchy of pictorial value established by Renaissance writers – principally Giorgio Vasari, who described the different schools of painting in Italy.34 The concept of schools of painting was further developed in the seventeenth century by art academies throughout Europe.35 At different times and in different places, the notion of what constituted a school changed, as did the perceived position of those schools within the overall hierarchy.36 The referencing of schools in sale catalogues was helpful as a more precise designator of the type of Old Master painting in question. As Bénédicte Miyamoto has pointed out, ‘once introduced, schools proved attractive labels in their simplicity and their promise of a standardised quality and seemed to have acted as guides for new buyers’.37 As noted, the Old Master market from 1789 to 1939 comprised a changing and heterogeneous ensemble of artists and subjects as well as geographical schools. In the 1790s and the subsequent decades, the Old Masters were defined as principally covering Italian and French Late Renaissance and Baroque painters, with a scattering of Netherlandish artists such as (principally) Rubens and (with some reservations) Rembrandt, and almost exclusively Murillo among the Spaniards.38 By the midtwentieth century, this market categorization had opened up, in catalogues, auctions and collections, to include Italian, French and Netherlandish medieval and early Renaissance works; Diego Velázquez and other Spanish Baroque painters, such as Claudio Coello; Dutch seventeenth-century genre pictures; and, most striking of all, ‘Early English’ painting. The latter encompassed British landscape and portraiture of the late eighteenth century, notably the works of Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough and George Romney. This book traces the expansion and illustrates how, intersecting with the methods of connoisseurship, art history and patterns of

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collecting, the Old Master market extended to encompass a timeframe from 1200 to the early 1800s, thus including paintings from the Middle Ages up to Neoclassicism, and even some from the early Romantic era.39 In fact, Fletcher and Helmreich’s conclusion on the art market in general, namely that ‘the art market may be more accurately described as a set of intersecting markets, each with its own affordances, limits, temporal rhythms and histories’, also applies to the Old Master market.40 After all, the latter was never a homogeneous trade but rather a conglomeration of sub-markets, subdivided and categorized by geographical, temporal and typological boundaries, including, to name but a few, Early Italian, Renaissance Venice, British eighteenth-century portraiture, Dutch seventeenthcentury landscapes or genre scenes. But crucially, these sub-markets were never completely disjoined endeavours, very often being sold by the same dealers, purchased by the same buyers and written about by the same critics. They often had a deep impact and influence on each other, for example the increase in appreciation for Rembrandt, Velázquez and Gainsborough all being part of a re-evaluation of single-figure portraiture that manifested itself in the twentieth century. This awareness of the Old Master market as composed of many fluctuating subsectors is present in the primary sources. In 1928, the Italian art critic Achille Locatelli Milesi gave a detailed definition and assessment of the current Old Master market.41 Milesi listed the artists whose work was then the most valued financially: Italian Early Renaissance, especially Florentine and Tuscan; the Venetian High Renaissance and a few later painters such as Tiepolo, Canaletto and Guardi; and Dutch painters of the Golden Age, who achieved, he said, ‘prezzi sbalorditivi’ (‘astonishing prices’).42 Milesi compared his contemporary valuations with prices that had been achieved a century earlier. He noted that many artists who had enjoyed high commercial estimates in the early nineteenth century, such as the Italians Annibale Carracci, Domenichino and Guido Reni, and the French Nicolas Poussin, Lebrun and Georges de La Tour, were much less valued in 1928. For Milesi, these shifts were caused by the two factors that will be addressed next: developments in scholarship and taste.

Connoisseurship and Scholarship The Old Master market’s relationship with connoisseurship and scholarship was, and is, complex and overlapping.43 Milesi believed that fluctuations in commercial values were due principally and directly to the development of art scholarship. It was because of these advances that commercial valuation of his day ultimately corresponded to ‘true’ artistic value.44 Milesi, de facto, argued that the Old Master market was the commercial arm of scholarship: connoisseurs proposed and the Old Master market disposed. And yet, he admitted that these dynamics of proposition/disposition were not simple or straightforward. After all, the canon of excellence itself was not a fixed categorization; rather, as Milesi’s article itself illustrated, it was an ever-changing, and often disputed, entity – as regions and artists were discovered and promoted, schools and names went in and out of critical fashion. Scholars have illustrated how sometimes the market clearly reflected the art historical canon and individual artists’ cultural reception as then understood, but at other points, the market anticipated or even influenced scholarship

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and reception by promoting the work of a previously unknown artist.45 A well-known example of this is the rediscovery of Jan Vermeer by the art dealer and critic Théophile Thoré-Bürger (1807–69).46 At times, the market operated in tandem – not to say with full connivance – with scholarship, not least because dealers took part in producing that scholarship, either directly or through influence or contact with those who were. Such collaborations between dealers and critics were many. For instance, the collector and dealer Luigi Celotti (c. 1768–c. 1846), having found a signed work by Antonio da Solario, went on to sponsor a monograph about him.47 Or, again, Adolfo Venturi (1856– 1941), when compiling his enduring text of reference for Italian art history, Storia dell’Arte Italiana, used as images and evidence of painters’ oeuvres many works which he himself had attributed to these masters at the important Holford Sale of 1927, for which he had acted as an academic adviser. Venturi’s citing of this collection fourteen times in his volume dedicated to sixteenth-century Italy ensured that a commercial event had a direct impact on generative art scholarship and also that the Holford pictures would be included within the academic canon.48

Taste The shift in meaning of the term ‘Old Masters’ reflected a widening not only in habits of collecting but also in consumer preference, or taste, a phenomenon which is hard to pin down, being bound up as Francis Haskell noted with a whole series of forces, including some that were religious, political, nationalistic, economic and intellectual in nature, matters which largely lie outside of the scope of this volume.49 This book, however, bears witness to some large-scale developments in the history of taste for the Old Masters, such as the shift in preference of some important American collectors in the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth to the Old Masters, alongside a hitherto exclusive interest in modern art – whether French (Barbizon pictures, popular Salon paintings or French Impressionists) or contemporary American art. Another trend it notes is the increasing interest taken in early Italian art which took place in the British private sphere from the 1820s, picking up momentum by midcentury, at which point public institutions became key players in the field.50 Already in the 1810s, letters by Buchanan show that he recognized the rising interest in early Italian art, but he was unable to fathom what people saw in it, and therefore was at a loss as to how to promote it.51 By the mid-1850s, the historical interest of Giotto, Cimabue, et al. was recognized by many scholars, museum officials and certain prominent collectors across Europe. In 1857, Director Charles Eastlake (1793–1865) acquired for the National Gallery in London, twenty-two early Florentine and Sienese examples from the Florentine dealers Francesco Lombardi and Ugo Baldi.52 In similar vein, early Venetian art was purchased in the mid-1860s from Bishop Jusip Jurai Strossmayer (1815–1905) for the Zagreb Gallery in Croatia.53 Avant-garde artistic groups, such as the Nazarenes in Germany, I Puristi in Italy and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in Britain, increasingly appreciated this art, which they often cited visually in their own work. But such a turn in learned taste did not entirely affect purchasing decisions within a broader consumer base. Prices for late medieval and early Renaissance art certainly grew, sometimes to considerable peaks, a good example being Duveen’s purchase of a

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Fig. 0.2 Rembrandt, The Mill, 1645–8. Oil on canvas, 87.6 × 105.6 cm. Courtesy of National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Holy Family by Mantegna in 1912 for £29,500 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) – a work which had been sold previously, in 1904, for £4,000 – and Andrew W. Mellon’s (1855–1937) acquisition of Botticelli’s Adoration of the Kings (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) in 1931 from the Hermitage for £173,600.54 But, generally, this type of art, as often lamented by Sienese specialist and dealer Robert Langton Douglas (1864–1951), achieved lower prices compared with more fashionable Old Master art such as Dutch Golden Age landscapes or, later on, British eighteenth-century portraiture. For instance, in 1910, American millionaire P. A. B. Widener (1834–1915) purchased Rembrandt’s The Mill (Fig. 0.2) for £100,000, and in 1926, another American millionaire, Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927), paid £176,000 for Gainsborough’s Blue Boy (Huntington Museum, San Marino), then the most expensive painting in the world.55

Key Stages in the Development of the Old Master Market, 1789–1939 Growing Reach The Old Master market depended on the circulation and dispersal of a particular kind of mobile asset – works of art. Such mobility was frequently propelled either by political, economic and social crises caused by war, agricultural depression and

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increased taxation, or supported by the easing of laws concerning property transfer or export. For instance, a contributing factor to the British being the chief buyers at the celebrated Orléans Sale of Italian and French pictures of 1798 in London was the diminished international competition because of the Napoleonic Wars. International rivalry between European buyers picked up again after the end of hostilities, as can be seen in the 1845 Fesch Sale in Rome, and in Parisian auctions, such as the 1852 Collot and Soult Sales and the 1865 Pourtalés-Gorgier Sale. The ability to access new stock and new clients was essential to any dealer. During the century-and-a-half under review here, when transport and communication systems became more sophisticated, it became increasingly common for dealers to travel internationally to tap into markets at both the supply and demand ends of the chain. Whereas in the early eighteenth century the activity of the Parisian marchandmercier (dealer in pictures and decorative arts) Edmé-François Gersaint (1694–1750), who travelled north to secure Flemish and Dutch Old Masters for his picture sales, was considered rather exceptional, early nineteenth-century dealers were increasingly itinerant. As the Ancien Régime drew to a close, specialized dealers, who were usually also competent linguists, increasingly took advantages of arbitrage opportunities, profiting from price differences for paintings between the Low Countries on the one hand, and London and Paris on the other.56 A fully functioning international import–export business was not easy to achieve as export restrictions often limited the circulation of cultural goods, a prime example being in the Italian Peninsula, both pre- and post-Unification. Guido Guerzoni and Donata Levi, among others, have discussed elsewhere the many laws passed to prevent the export of Old Master paintings and other artefacts, a practice that, in fact, had started with the issuing of papal bulls from the mid-fifteenth century to stop the export of Roman sculptures.57 After Unification, the newly formed Italian state took measures to control the flow of exports. Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle (1819–97) and Giovanni Morelli (1816–91) were heavily involved in the state’s new initiatives to find, catalogue and preserve the historic paintings of Italy, both, for instance, being part of the commission that in June 1866 brought under governmental control all works of art that were to be considered public property.58 Cavalcaselle and Morelli, however, had long-standing and fruitful working relations with London’s National Gallery, and after Unification they found themselves caught in a moral dilemma over which institutions to support. This was not the first time that Italy had experienced such a situation. The activity of Pietro Camuccini (1761–1833) in Rome in the 1790s is a case in point: he was a very active dealer internationally whilst being a functionary of the Papal States, tasked with protecting artistic treasures from export.59 This double role was no exception, for state and academy functionaries all over Italy were usually simultaneous players on the art market.60 Other countries were not exempt from such a situation either. In France, as early as the mid-1790s, numerous dealers, including Jean-Baptiste Pierre Lebrun (1748–1813), played the same double game. Lebrun, too, invoked the patriotic argument that certain works on the French art market should be purchased for the French nation while simultaneously working in the background to secure their sale abroad. Similarly, sales from Britain to Europe and America in the course of the later nineteenth century were at the same time hindered and supported by dealers such as

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Agnew’s and P&D Colnaghi.61 The clash between international commerce and protection of national heritage is a leitmotif of this book. At the turn of the nineteenth century, many works left their countries of origin to be redistributed in a European context. This transnational circulation followed specific currents. If France and the Netherlands were sites of import as well as export, other nations such as Italy, Portugal and Spain – because of their abundance of Old Master holdings, as well as their economic and political instability – were principally exporters. Britain and Germany – thanks to their wealth, relative political stability and growing appetite for such art – were Europe’s largest importers of Old Masters. The transnational reach continued during the nineteenth century to include other countries and cities beyond the traditional arbitrage triangle of Amsterdam, Paris and London. By 1867, the French critic Philippe Burty noted that ‘almost all important deals in old master paintings [were] arranged by a handful of prominent agents, travelling from France to England, from Spain to Russia’.62 By the turn of the twentieth century, firms such as Duveen and Knoedler had developed into corporate affairs, with branches in all the major art centres across Europe and the United States. Indeed, periodicals such as Art News in the United States, Apollo and The Connoisseur in the United Kingdom and Les Arts in France published numerous advertisements for international dealers and auction houses with multiple branches in Europe and the United States, with capital cities – principally London, Paris and New York – listed most frequently as their locations.63 In the course of the twentieth century, the reach of the market broadened still further, and works left not only France, Italy, Portugal and Spain, but also Britain and Germany for the United States, South Africa, Australia and elsewhere, a phenomenon that brought many new clients. Among these, there were public and private buyers in Central and Eastern Europe as well as colonial Australia, South Africa and even farther afield. For instance, when the collection belonging to Japanese businessman Kojiiro Matsukata (1865–1950) was seized by the Jugo Bank of Tokyo in 1927, following its owner’s bankruptcy, it was found to contain several paintings then attributed to esteemed Old Masters, such as Mantegna and Velázquez as well as works ascribed to more obscure painters, including Parri Spinelli and Bartolomeo Ramenghi.64 The works had been procured from well-known London art dealers such as Dowdeswell’s and William Lawson Peacock’s Gallery, confirming the continued importance of this city for the Old Master market.

Diversifying Clients Another discernible pattern in the history of the Old Master market during the period from 1789 to 1939 is the changing social profile of its buyers. The 1789 Orléans Collection Sale, which happened at the start of the timeframe considered here, provides a telling example of the high social rank of the collectors of the Old Masters at the time. The works were purchased on behalf of three aristocratic collectors – the Duke of Bridgewater, Lord Gower and the Earl of Carlisle – each of whom kept a portion of the collection before selling off the remnant to principally aristocratic buyers. Although non-titled buyers existed, they were, at the time, in the minority. This tradition of

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collecting Old Masters by royalty or the aristocracy remained in play until the first decades of the nineteenth century, but thereafter there were few significant buyers among them.65 By then the wealth of the major Old Masters buyers in Britain, including John Julius Angerstein (1735–1823), Henry Hope (1735–1811) and Thomas Baring (1772–1848) – who, in fact, hailed from Russian, Dutch and German families, respectively – came from insurance, industry and banking.66 From the second half of the nineteenth century, colonial and ex-colonial buyers had also entered the Old Master market: Otto Beit (1865–1930) and Max Michaelis (1852–1932) from South Africa, whose money came from the mining of diamonds and gold, and Australianborn George Salting (1835–1909), who made a large fortune from sheep-farming and sugarcane-growing, and Charles Drury Edward Fortnum (1820–99), a member of the family who owned the prestigious London department store, Fortnum & Mason, and who settled between 1840–5 in South Australia, where he acquired a cattle ranch. American plutocrats also joined the scene, such as the banker John Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913); Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919), who made his fortune from steel, railroads and real estate; railroad tycoons Arabella Huntington (1851–1924), the wife, in turn, of American railway tycoons and industrialists Collis P. Huntington (1821– 1900) and Henry C. Huntington (1850–1927); corporate lawyer John Graver Johnson (1841–1917); the banker Andrew W. Mellon (1855–1937); and many others.67 This trend continued apace so that in time British, South African, American and Australian wealthy entrepreneurs came to dominate the Old Master market. In fact, nearing the end of the period under examination in this book, at the Holford Sales of 1927–8 (Fig. 0.3), the principal buyers were non-titled collectors, many from the United States. For instance, the portrait of the Marchesa Balbi by Anthony van Dyck (now National Gallery of Art, Washington) was sold privately to Andrew W. Mellon; the Madonna and Child with Six Saints by Pesellino (now Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) was bought by Knoedler for the American oil magnates Mary (1874– 1950) and Edward Stephen Harkness (1874–1940); and a Florentine Portrait of a Woman (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, now attributed to the Maestro of the Castello Nativity), was acquired by Duveen for another American, the banker Jules Bache (1861–1944). In 1928, the most celebrated picture in the sale, Young Man with a Cleft Chin, then attributed to Rembrandt (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), was purchased by Knoedler for yet another American, the businesswoman and philanthropist Joan Whitney Payson (1903–75). With the inception and growth of public museum collections at the start of the nineteenth century, the art market gained yet another new type of buyer, whose importance and influence in the Old Master market cannot be overstated. The rise of public museums is undoubtedly a nineteenth-century phenomenon. Although both the Uffizi in Florence and the Národní Gallery in Prague had opened to the public as early as 1769, no public picture gallery existed in other major cities such as London and Berlin or in the newly developing New York – the Louvre itself would open in Paris only in August 1793. It was in the first decades of the nineteenth century that many national collections were founded, including London’s National Gallery (in 1824), Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie (in 1830), Munich’s Alte Pinakothek (in 1836), Dresden’s Gemäldegalerie (visitors were admitted from the mid-1850s), New York’s Metropolitan

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Fig. 0.3 ‘The Holford Sale’, Illustrated London News, 28 March 1928, pp. 343–4. Photograph by the author.

Museum (in 1872) and Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum (in 1891), to name but a few. With Old Master dealers providing many of their pictures, if not some of the impetus for their very inception,68 these public art institutions soon presented an extraordinary concentration of high-quality pictures of the European past.

Increasing Visibility The Old Master market developed principally in three key stages with a distinctive type of figure dominant at each moment: first, agents whose business was broad-ranging but mostly conducted on a personal basis; then curiosity dealers, who presented a mixed model of business; and, finally, the modern professional and highly specialized dealers who held a large stock, displayed in specialized premises. As in many cases of historical transformation, this was not a straightforward linear process with one form of art trader dying out as another came to the fore. Rather, the development of new commercial models co-existed with the persistence of older models, such as that of the figure of the lone agent, which persisted well into the twentieth century. Indeed, art dealers operating privately without a visible shop front still exist and flourish today, frequently using virtual galleries through the internet. Originally, agents were often identified as ‘gentleman-dealers’.69 Frequently these were artists, but sometimes other cultural operators, such as tourist guides, sold Old Masters, too, and diplomats often had a hand in things as well – a throwback to practices in earlier

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centuries.70 To keep Old Masters circulating round the international art market and to make a name for themselves through such activity, those early dealers who worked more or less full time, operated personal businesses, importing and/or exporting paintings either legally or in a way that was below the radar, even illegal, and often working simultaneously in several different capacities. Authors in this volume have uncovered several new instances of illicit trade activity, including Pier Ludovico Puddu’s discovery that Camuccini had some of the Old Masters he wished to export to London painted over in order to conceal their true aesthetic merits and hence their correct financial value. Despite some people in Rome trying to press charges, the law never caught up with Camuccini and his reputation remained intact. In the case of a contemporary British art dealer, Thomas Moore Slade (1749–1831), Julia Armstrong-Totten has elsewhere demonstrated how he abused his position within British Customs and Excise by using a government ship at Calais without permission, deceiving its crew about the nature of its contents and failing to register the incoming cargo with London’s Excise Office.71 On this occasion, the law caught up with him: Slade lost his job and was heavily fined. In the course of the nineteenth century, agents were joined by the first retail operators who possessed a shop front: curiosity dealers, who also sold Old Master paintings.72 Within the large antiques sector, as demonstrated by Westgarth’s online census of antique dealers in Europe during the nineteenth century, the Old Masters were a relatively niche sector: antique traders with their ‘decorative’ arts sales dominated the auction market.73 The fashionable applied arts, amongst which pieces of historical furniture were favoured, were, in time, joined by another formidable market: modern pictures. Thomas Bayer and John Page’s quantitative analysis of auction data shows that in mid-nineteenth-century London, the market for modern art was three times the size of that for historical art.74 But, perhaps pioneered by Agnew’s in London and Sedelmeyer in Paris, fashionable dealers in modern art soon started to move into the Old Master market.75 The intersection of the trade in modern pictures with the Old Master market, and how much the former affected the latter is still largely unexplored. To date, the two have usually been investigated as parallel phenomena; a preliminary exploration of their intersection is attempted in this book. Over time, art dealing developed into a modern professional business, with dealers’ practices tending to become more visible, more transparent and accountable, and more specialized. Whereas a few dealers, including Martin Colnaghi and Hugh Lane (1875–1915), deliberately chose to portray themselves as charmingly vague gentlemen amateurs, most dealers wished to be seen as efficient, trustworthy and with correspondingly meticulous record-keeping practices – a modus operandi that reassured private clients and public institutions alike that they were in ‘safe hands’.76 Even a dealer such as Joseph Duveen (1869–1939), who continued in various ways the subterranean tradition of the agent, operated from publicly accessible galleries and advertised his company’s wares in newspapers and magazines. An increase in visibility through one’s gallery space was an important characteristic of this drive: a clearly marked space in an upmarket location came to indicate professionalism and respectability. Yet, much correspondence in the Duveen, Agnew’s, P&D Colnaghi and Knoedler archives, and as demonstrated by many essays in this book, shows that behind the façade of commercial visibility ‘sub rosa’ negotiations persisted in the form

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of shared purchases, acquisitions en bloc, exchanges quid pro quo, gifts and discounts. Such negotiations were fuelled by, and, in turn, led to, gossip, even intrigue. At a time of transcontinental operations and glossy advertisements in art magazines, the Old Master trade certainly maintained a deeply personal, and in some cases unorthodox, business model.

A Room of One’s Own With the inception of the modern professional dealer in Old Masters, increasing numbers of dealers started operating from a very visible shop front, clearly identified as a dealer’s gallery, managing a complex retail operation and larger finances, often with an international dimension and with specialist knowledge of particular areas within the field of Old Master painting. These dealers often acted as ‘umbrella’ organizations, employing agents to manage the day-to-day import to and export from other countries and to seek out new clients, and specialists to advise and provide expert certification for works of art on sale. A gallery of one’s own, a visible space that could double up as showroom plus saleroom, became, then, a crucial asset for dealers. When Camuccini exported his high-quality Old Masters from Roman collections in 1801, he had to hire a venue in which to exhibit them, having no premises of his own. Over the course of the nineteenth century, many dealers came to see the benefits of having their own gallery space. Other sectors of the art market had had a public face since the mid-eighteenth century in order to display works of art to the public and potential buyers for sale – auctioneers operated from rooms at a fixed address, and painters extended their town houses to incorporate galleries displaying examples of their own work, sometimes alongside Old Master paintings.77 Old Master dealers in London established smart shops, an early instance being Henry Farrer, whose premises in Wardour Street, established in 1822, was frequented by notable clients, including Ralph Bernal, the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Duke of Rutland.78 Whilst there is still no comprehensive study of the Old Master commercial gallery, Fletcher has demonstrated that it was the picture gallery showing modern art in London during the mid-nineteenth century that created a transformative way of displaying and selling art. Likewise, Helmreich has noted how such galleries became spaces for sociability, a phenomenon that Huemer has noted in relation to the salesroom of Charles Sedelmeyer (1837–1925).79 It is no coincidence, then, that Agnew’s, the first dealer to show Old Masters in a purpose-built gallery was a major contemporary art dealer. In the late 1800s, dealers like Agnew’s and Sedelmeyer brought to the Old Master market the style, buzz and fashion of contemporary art. Although there is little extant evidence about the appearance of the interiors of the earliest galleries selling Old Masters, literature can be an illuminating source of information. For instance, Gustave Flaubert’s Realist novel, L’éducation sentimentale, which features the flamboyant dealer Arnoux, describes in detail a dealer’s shop in the 1840s: The high, transparent plate-glass windows presented to one’s gaze statuettes, drawings, engravings, catalogues and numbers of L’Art Industriel, arranged in a

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Private galleries soon became attractions in their own right. The Milanese dealers Antonio and Carlo Sanquirico began to trade in Old Master paintings around 1815, eventually establishing a shop in Venice.81 Their gallery, as Robert Skwirblies notes in his chapter, established a reputation as a picturesque tourist venue ‘soon attracting attention especially of foreign visitors to Venice’. The Sanquirico Gallery had an arrangement of stock ‘inspired by traditional local collections’. His use of Palazzo Grimani as a showroom anticipated the premises in which William Blundell Spence (1814–1900), followed by Stefano Bardini (1836–1922) in Florence and Michelangelo Guggenheim (1837–1914) in Venice, sold glass, metal work, ceramics and carpets as well as paintings.82 Indeed, until well into the twentieth century, many Old Master dealers decorated their galleries to resemble the luxury dwellings of the clientele whom they wished to attract. For instance, in 1906, the Paris gallery of Robert Dell

Fig. 0.4 Advertisement for Shirleys in Boulevard Malesherbes, Paris, The Burlington Magazine, December 1906, s.p. Photograph by the author.

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Fig. 0.5 Advertisement for the Marlborough Gallery in Duke Street, London, American Art News, 10 May 1913, p. 6. Photograph by the author.

(1865–1940), ‘Shirleys’, was elegantly furnished in eighteenth-century French style (Fig. 0.4), whereas in 1913, the ‘Marlborough Gallery’ of Robert René Meyer Sée (1884– 1950) was decorated like a patrician study, in a neo-Renaissance manner (Fig. 0.5).83 In the late 1920s, the displays in such galleries started to change: the previous overabundance of objects of all kinds, as described by Flaubert, gave way to a focus on paintings. Michael Bryan (1757–1821), with his exclusive focus on displaying pictures in his gallery, was a trendsetter. As another marketing ploy to concentrate the viewers’ attention on the works for sale, dealers also pioneered the single-line hang in the period 1890–1900. The profound cross-fertilization between displays in private homes, galleries and museums still awaits investigation. It is crucial, however, to signal that the commercial gallery was not at the end of this process of imitation but rather that its interiors could be important sources of inspiration. For instance, in 1853, London’s National Gallery chose for its walls a new maroon colour, ‘similar to that now upon the walls of Messrs Colnaghi’s large room in Pall Mall East’.84 A key factor in ensuring the success of a dealer’s gallery was to establish it in a permanent and prestigious location, because such a placement brought distinction, credibility as well as findability through trade directories and tourist guides. In London, Bond Street developed as a fashionable dealer’s address. As Westgarth has demonstrated elsewhere, many dealers who wished to disassociate themselves from the taint of the ‘curiosity trade’ in Soho transferred their galleries to this quarter of London’s elite West End.85 This was where, in the 1820s, John Smith established himself in an upscale gallery and it was also where all the larger London-based dealers would start to congregate

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from mid-century, notably Agnew’s, P&D Colnaghi, Wertheimer and, later, Duveen.86 Every nation had its fashionable spots for the art world. In Paris, for instance, the most desirable addresses were in the select neighbourhoods of Faubourg Saint-Honoré or in the Place Vendôme, in front of the Ritz Hôtel, with its rich and cosmopolitan clientele, and so this was where the Parisian branches of leading dealers such as Knoedler, Durand-Ruel, Agnew’s and Duveen were to be found.87 In Berlin, before the First World War, a reputable dealer’s address was Unter den Linden, and, in Rome, artist dealers such as Attilio Simonetti (1843–1925) continued in the successful tradition of mixing modern and old art, pictures and objets d’art in palaces such as the Palazzo Altemps, near Piazza Navona.88 In New York, Fifth Avenue had become the preferred position of the art trade from the late nineteenth century onwards, which explains the choice of this location for Duveen’s imposing new gallery, which he had purpose-built in 1913.89

Branding and Advertising Part of being visible was the creation of a distinctive corporate identity. The need for differentiation is essential for a firm to thrive, a process that today is defined as creating a brand. Art dealers at the turn of the twentieth century strove for diversification and specialization in a competitive market.90 As Harrison White has described in his study of markets as networks, firms deliberately pursue niches and differentiate themselves from their rivals to survive.91 If successful, they become brands, closely associated with their chosen sector of the market. Most dealers in the period investigated in this book distinguished themselves both by their choice of stock and their presentation of it – for example, Smith dominated the market for Netherlandish art, Agnew’s for eighteenthcentury British portraiture, while Goupil initially made his name with French academic pictures. There were many ways in which firms could express their distinctive identity, from the typography of catalogues and labels, through gallery furnishings and the arrangement of their exhibitions. During the twentieth century, advertising was also used to develop dealers as brands. Advertising was not a new tool, of course. It had been utilized by artists and other players in the art market since the eighteenth century in Paris – Gersaint was innovative in his use of local weeklies, such as the Mercure de France, to advertise rigorously and systematically the preview days of any of his auctions. Dealers continued throughout the centuries to exploit the growing reach of printed media to advertise their sales, loan exhibitions and other services they offered. Starting in the 1830s, Agnew’s advertised its exhibitions together with its fashionable wares in the principal national newspapers, namely The Times, Manchester Guardian and Illustrated London News. In the twentieth century, whenever a new art journal appeared, such as American Art News in the United States, and The Burlington Magazine, Connoisseur and Apollo in Britain, dealers unfailingly advertised in them.92 The dealers’ advertisements, which often contain photographs of stock and gallery interiors, remain an underused resource for investigating the branding strategies of the Old Master trade. For example, Duveen’s advertisements of the early 1900s display, innovatively and strikingly, just the name of the firm in large typography (Fig. 0.6).93 This minimal information showed great confidence in the firm’s identity, but also demonstrated

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Fig. 0.6 Advertisement for Duveen, The Burlington Magazine, May 1906, s.p. Photograph by the author.

Fig. 0.7 Advertisement for Agnew’s, The Burlington Magazine, March 1909, s.p. Photograph by the author.

the wish to keep their stock a guarded secret. By contrast, when in March 1909 Agnew’s paid for a new series of advertisements in the The Burlington Magazine, they reproduced photographs with details of the works advertised – to our knowledge, the first Old Masters dealers to do so (Fig. 0.7).94 Agnew’s publication of artists’ names and of titles of paintings not only showed confidence in the firm’s ability to make attributions and identify subjects, but also illustrated a more transparent business model, as the advertisements showcased key pieces of their stock, thus no longer keeping such matters a guarded secret. If Duveen’s adverts exuded a glamorous allure and an aura of mystery, Agnew’s images communicated pride in the firm’s connoisseurship and professionalism.

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Accountability Sales Models Just as the lone, private agent was the original type of the Old Master dealer, so for a long time private contract sales were the preferred commercial transactions for Old Masters, as Armstrong-Totten and others have demonstrated.95 This type of sale arose and developed specifically through the sale of Old Master paintings and took place in situ in the dealer’s premises. Dealer and investor Noël Desenfans (1745–1807) introduced this type of transaction into London in 1786, on the back of his disappointment that Christie’s had not been able to auction off his substantial private picture collection the previous year. Desenfans had the enterprising idea that it would be financially profitable to mount a long-term exhibition, in which he put up all the paintings for sale, if he charged a modest entrance fee to view the pictures and required from the seller a commission or percentage of up to 5 per cent of the selling price. His gamble worked: the public visited in droves and he profited financially. Many late-eighteenth-century dealers followed Desenfans’ lead, to the extent that Armstrong-Totten estimates that for over fifty years, private contract sales became one of the most important methods of sale and display in London.96 Two of the first to follow suit were Slade and Bryan, who used private contract sales in 1793 and 1798, respectively, to sell off the Orléans Collection pictures. Slade’s efforts, which included an innovative and extended media campaign, according to Armstrong-Totten, ‘must be seen not only as England’s first blockbuster exhibition of old master paintings, but also as the defining event that changed public perception of how successfully important and expensive paintings could sell even during difficult times’.97 This system of private contract sale continued well into the 1930s. The stock books of Knoedler, Tooth and Duveen show that all these later high-end dealerships likewise sold their stock individually through private contracts, levying a mark-up that varied from 5 to 200 per cent of the sale price, although lower percentage mark-ups were far more frequent than the higher ones. As financial records of dealers remain scarce, it is difficult to be sure how much these practices were spread throughout Europe, the United States and beyond. If private contract sales did not always guarantee transparency in prices, the financial arrangements that Agnew’s offered at the end of the nineteenth century did. As Pezzini explains in her chapter, Agnew’s would bid at auction on behalf of clients for a 5 per cent commission and charged double, 10 per cent, if works were chosen by buyers from Agnew’s own purchases at auction. These transparent pricing arrangements, at least for works acquired at auction, allowed the firm to build up a reputation for honesty, which aided their growth. Other dealers started to pursue innovative business practices, which also had experimental financial arrangements. The Grosvenor Gallery in Bond Street, from 1877 to 1890, promoted contemporary artists within their summer exhibitions. They put on equally ambitious winter shows, which sometimes also displayed the works of recently deceased masters and/or the Old Masters.98 This distribution, ‘Summer/ Contemporary Art’ and ‘Winter/Old Masters’, mirrored the exhibition season at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, an institution that had started to show Old Masters in annual exhibitions from 1870. The entrance fees from the Grosvenor Gallery

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exhibitions were donated to charitable causes, a model followed by Agnew’s throughout the twentieth century.99 Charitable exhibitions reaped many benefits for the dealers concerned, even if not of a straightforwardly financial kind: they allowed the host dealers to present themselves as worthy and honourable, they put these galleries on the map to potential new audiences, and they encouraged the building-up of good relations with lenders who might include, in addition to a dealer’s own clients, public institutions and even other dealers. For instance, the dealer Martin Colnaghi was a generous lender to exhibitions other than those he himself mounted, lending Old Masters to the Academy’s Winter exhibitions and to the New Gallery in Regent Street.100

Liquidity, Risk Management and Partnerships High capital and the ability to access this capital quickly through liquid assets rather than having it tied up in stock was one of the most important devices that an Old Master dealer could exploit. That is why dealers often sold off part of their stock at auction or as job lots to other dealers, even at a loss: they needed to generate cash to invest in other works of art. This explains why, in 1904, London art dealers Dowdeswells, in association with the American art dealer Theron J. Blakeslee (1851–1914), auctioned 161 English, French, Dutch and Flemish pictures in New York.101 Reviewers commented how this was ‘a bargain sale, many of the canvases going for absolutely low figures’.102 Indeed, it is highly probable that this auction was a liquidation of stock either to invest in other works (and hence an exercise in refreshing stock) or to repay debts. With steep purchase prices and resales always uncertain, debt and financial ruin loomed large for many dealers who did not have substantial personal capital as a backstop. Blakeslee would himself become one such victim, in fact making front-page news in 1914, when he committed suicide because of the debts incurred by his failing business.103 One way of financing expensive purchases was to spread the financial load and risk across a firm’s partners or branches, but this, of course, depended on dealers not working on their own. Another way to spread the risk of acquiring costly Old Masters was to purchase them jointly, either with bankers and financial institutions or with other dealers, the latter a modus operandi that became increasingly utilized during the timeframe under consideration. For instance, Alexander Day (1751–1841) and Camuccini associated with the wealthy Florentine banker Giovanni Torlonia (1755– 1829) to secure expensive paintings. A similar trio arrangement was formed, in the 1820s, by John Smith, who, through his partnership with the dealer Brondgeest and wealthy banker Adriaan van der Hoop (1778–1854), was enabled to part-own such masterpieces as Rembrandt’s Isaac and Rebecca (Amsterdam, Rijkmuseum). At the end of the nineteenth century, and well into the twentieth, large dealerships often worked together, an example being Boussod, Valadon & Cie, the successors of Goupil’s, who partnered up at the famous 1889 Secrétan Sale to purchase Rembrandt’s Man in Armour with fellow dealers Sedelmeyer and Montaignac.104 Agnew’s, who for the longest time had purchased exclusively using their own capital, in the course of the nineteenth century changed tack, and started, from the early 1900s, acquiring several works in partnership, dedicating part of a stock book exclusively to record these joint transactions.105

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Developing Specialist Knowledge Expertise Art dealers’ proficiency in choosing stock depended on their ability to gain expertise in their preferred sector of the market. This kind of specialist knowledge, in the Old Master market as in other sectors of the art trade, was often secured empirically, through fieldwork and direct contact with the objects, usually the result of long apprenticeships in family firms or with other dealers. Dealers’ autobiographies consistently report such practices. For instance, William Agnew (1825–1910), who joined his family firm as an apprentice on 31 December 1840 and became a partner a decade later, on 1 January 1851, gained experience in the Old Masters from bidding on commission at Christie’s and travelling throughout Europe to see works of art firsthand.106 Similarly, James Henry Duveen reported how, as a young dealer in the early twentieth-century, he was sent by his family to examine collections across Europe in search of precious items to hone his knowledge base.107 The latter activity by that time was a tried-and-tested method: as late as 1927, both dealers and scholars were listing museums and collections as their places of study, as today’s professionals list their places of education.108 Specialist knowledge was also gained through absorbing the contents of relevant publications. Particularly useful to the Old Master trade were the listings of an artist’s known works and their provenance, publications known as catalogues raisonnés. Dealers were not only the consumers but also the producers of these useful data banks. The publication of these detailed surveys of pictorial schools was started by French dealers, notably Jean-Baptiste Descamps (in the 1750s), François-Charles Joullain (1783) and Le Brun (1792), who all wrote about the northern Old Masters.109 Other dealers followed suit with English-language publications, first Bryan, whose double volume Biographical and Critical Dictionary of Painters and Engravers remained, after its publication in 1816, a standard reference work for over a century. Another significant publication was A Review of the Lives and Works of Some of the Most Eminent Painters of 1834 by Brussels-born dealer Chrétien Jean Nieuwenhuys (1799–1883). Most important of all was John Smith’s Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters (1829–43), a magnum opus in nine volumes, which systematically documented the paintings by forty-one artists then popular with collectors. It remains the foundation for standard reference books still in use today. In the course of the twentieth century, scholarship and front-line dealership came to be perceived as incompatible, especially for dealers who possessed a very visible street presence. These dealers, however, remained involved in shaping the field by acting as publishers; for example, Agnew’s were the publishers of George Romney’s first catalogue raisonné in 1901 and P&D Colnaghi of John Hoppner’s in 1912. Dealers who were not publicly identified as such were, however, able to push their scholarly outputs further. For instance, Douglas prepared the 1903 edition of Joseph Archer Crowe (1825–96) and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle’s History of Painting in Italy for the publisher John Murray, and Bernard Berenson (1856–1959), the adviser of Colnaghi and Duveen, was able to develop a fully fledged career as an expert in Renaissance art, in parallel with his involvement in the picture trade.

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Client Preferences The reverse side of the coin of gaining stock was the ability to sell it. The dealers who succeeded best at gaining, maintaining and broadening their clientele were those who understood and influenced buyers’ preferences. There were general matters to be borne in mind respecting broader trends in taste as well as matters that related to specific individuals, and the letters that Buchanan sent to his colleagues are a rich source of both kinds of information. Buchanan, along with many others, tried hard to match particular Old Master paintings with individuals, utilizing his understanding of their personal tastes gained from his knowledge of their previous purchases. For instance, of Lady Lucas, Buchanan observed: [She] is excessively fond of Guido [Reni], and wished to have purchased a small picture of a St Sebastian which was in the Orléans [collection] . . . I am glad I came to the knowledge . . . for Irvine has acquired . . . his finished study for the grand picture of Guido in the Church of Trinita di Pellegrini at Rome.110

American private buyers, such as Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924), J. P. Morgan (1837–1913), Andrew W. Mellon and others, often establishing a trusted relationship with a single firm of dealers. If Agnew’s, Colnaghi and others had faithful American clients up to the early twentieth century, later on it was Joseph Duveen who was particularly able to forge exclusive ties, which lasted until his death in 1939. An interesting exception was Frick, who was not only a Duveen client but rather more a client of Knoedler. Such associations were often lucrative for dealers – it was therefore worth their while to spend time and effort on nurturing close bonds with their wealthiest clients. One way to make themselves indispensable was by offering various services that went far beyond sourcing and selling Old Master paintings. Some dealers cleaned and restored their clients’ pictures either undertaking such operations in-house or managing them externally. Knoedler’s was one such firm that provided services relating to the display of clients’ collections, arranging insurance, purchasing frames, and organizing transport of the collection between a client’s various homes. Agnew’s was another firm that assisted clients with cleaning, framing and displaying pictures, while Duveen started off their business as interior decorators. Indeed, that firm had had showrooms in London and New York for that very purpose before they ever handled major paintings – the paintings initially being regarded merely as an attractive way to cover the walls.111 Some of these services were offered to institutional clients, too; for instance, the National Gallery paid Agnew’s for mounting and framing almost a hundred works on paper by Turner, which entered the national collection in 1856 through the Turner Bequest.112 This was, by now, a long-established modus operandi among dealers. In the previous century, for example, Samuel Woodburn (1783–1853), his brother William Woodburn (1778–1860), and John Smith and his sons had all offered picture-cleaning, picturehanging and picture-framing services, while the curiosity dealer-cum-cabinetmaker, Robert Hume the younger (fl. 1815–50) had provided furnishings, fittings and furniture for the Duke of Hamilton and William Beckford.113

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Gift-giving was an important element of the dealers’ bonding strategy. Both with museums and private clients, dealers would create at strategic moments an obligation in their clients by donating well-chosen works of art as presents, or selling them something at cost or at a much lower profit margin than expected. Arguably, the dealer who exploited gift-giving most fully was Joseph Duveen. He donated money, works of art and sponsored new galleries at London’s National Gallery, Tate Gallery and British Museum; gave gifts to Wilhelm Bode, Director of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin for that institution, and presented other paintings to Prince Paul for the new Yugoslav State Art Collection.

Overview of the Book This volume explores the principal players and key moments of the development of the Old Master market in the period 1789 to 1939, divided into three chronological parts, highlighting this trade’s increasing geographical reach, its principal transformations and its growing complexities, respectively. ‘Part One: Developing European Networks, 1780–1894’, discusses the growth and crystallization of European networks, especially in Italy, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands and Germany. The first chapter, by Robert Skwirblies, is a widereaching analysis of the momentous years between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the political upheavals of the 1830s for the Italian Old Master trade in Europe. Skwirblies shows how the transformations of this period were to define for the entire century the Old Master market as a whole. As a large quantity of art moved across Europe, and collaborations were established among state officials, buyers and sellers, the knowledge and demand for old paintings grew – processes that also resulted in the formation of new public collections. Pier Ludovico Puddu follows on, drilling down with a detailed case study during this period of great political upheaval. He examines the situation of two international dealers and collaborators, Alexander Day and Pietro Camuccini, revealing how they purchased at relatively low prices paintings by major Old Master painters such as Raphael, Titian and the Carracci, and how they subsequently exported (often illegally) such paintings outside Italy, for high-profit resale on the London art market. There were, however, other routes for the Old Master trade, and other models of dealing. Julia I. Armstrong-Totten, in the third chapter, illustrates an example of one such alternative model, investigating how, in the early nineteenth century, the carver, gilder and framemaker John Smith developed into a respected and internationally renowned dealer, who worked especially with Netherlandish pictures and dealers from the Low Countries. Both Puddu and Armstrong-Totten show that one of the dealers’ greatest assets was networking, a topic which recurs time and again in this book. Finally, Avery-Quash, in Chapter 4, analyses the last crucial element of the Old Master market underlined by Skwirblies: the relationship of the market with the newly developing public collections. New art galleries such as the National Gallery in London (opened in 1824) increased not only the demand for Old Masters, but also stimulated an appreciation of them and knowledge about them, as well as contributing to the refashioning and enlarging of the

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definition of Old Masters themselves. Avery-Quash addresses the question of the changing relationship of the National Gallery with art agents, illustrating a transient, and ultimately declining, situation, which reflected a broader loss of importance of the individual agent contra the rise of professional dealers in London (but also elsewhere) during the second half of the nineteenth century. The themes of professionalization, increased visibility of the market and its definition, as well as the role of the Old Master market within a wider knowledge economy, are explored in, ‘Part Two: Gaining International Visibility and Expertise, 1850–1909’, which examines cases from France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Ireland and the United States, from the second half of the nineteenth century up to the first quarter of the twentieth century. Léa Saint-Raymond’s essay for Chapter 5 addresses through quantitative analysis an important question: how did the Old Master market come to be perceived as a distinct sector of the trade? It was not until the 1850s that Parisian auction catalogues began to distinguish ‘ancient’ from ‘modern’ pictures. Analysing a new, rich dataset, she identifies the principal agents and dealers of the Parisian auction market and traces their growing specialization into sales of ‘ancient’ or ‘modern’ art, showing how the Old Masters remained for some time a relatively small, unimportant and niche sector of the Parisian auction. Barbara Pezzini, in the next chapter, studies the relationship between modern art and the Old Masters through the case of a successful British firm, Agnew’s. Pezzini highlights the strategies that dealers in modern art such as Agnew’s employed to penetrate, stimulate and control the Old Master market, arguing that, together with subject expertise and personal connections, a positive relationship with public institutions was a crucial asset for a firm’s long-term success in this sector. Connections, information and knowledge are the principal keywords of the last three essays of this part, Chapters 7–9, by Véronique Gerard Powell, Catherine B. Scallen and Imogen Tedbury. They analyse the dealers’ growing international networks, also in the context of a newly formed awareness of the need to protect the national patrimony. Gerard Powell considers the acquisitions of Spanish paintings by the French art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, now best remembered as a generous patron of modern art. Durand-Ruel, however, was a shrewd businessman in Spanish Old Masters, ruthlessly utilizing information contained in newly published books to secure paintings still held in Spanish private collections. He thereby managed to export to France many important works, which he subsequently sold either to the Louvre or to buyers in the USA. Another major dealer, Joseph Duveen, relied directly on expert knowledge, and his connection with Bernard Berenson is well known. Scallen, however, illustrates here his hitherto unexplored connection with the ageing German museum director Wilhelm von Bode. Their relationship began with coolness and distrust, but over time Duveen succeeded in developing their rapport and persuading Bode to act as an expert adviser as well as an intermediary with collectors. Scallen’s essay, as well as Tedbury’s study of Douglas, shows how the role, and power, of the individual, be it agent or scholar adviser, a role which was at the forefront of the Old Master market in the earlier nineteenth century, did not cease with the growth of professional dealerships, but continued and transformed itself, well into the twentieth century. Tedbury examines how a private individual, Robert Langton Douglas, a scholar of the early Italian

26

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Renaissance and Director of the National Gallery of Ireland, operated as Old Master dealer throughout his career. Douglas ran a publicly invisible, and deeply personal, business. Douglas, unlike Duveen, possessed only limited capital for investment, yet he was able to thrive because of his uniquely privileged access to British private collectors and his expertise. The last part of this volume, ‘Part Three: Casting a Wider Net, 1900–39’, illustrates the geographical enlargement, and its cultural significance, of the Old Master market to the USA, Yugoslavia, Australia and South Africa in the twentieth century, up to the Great Depression and the start of the Second World War. The authors examine failures, contradictions and tensions as well as successes in the Old Master market. Agnès Penot, in Chapter 10, investigates how La Maison Goupil, a successful dealership that had been previously known for its extensive international network of galleries devoted to promoting and selling modern art, was unable to adapt to the surge of interest in the Old Masters in the early twentieth century, and how such inability to embrace change was instrumental in the company’s demise. Penot’s chapter on the undoing of Goupil’s business model, a model that had been previously so successful, is especially revealing. It was a firm connected to Goupil – Knoedler and Co., founded by Michael Knoedler, the American representative of Goupil & Cie – that shifted dramatically, and successfully, to introduce the sale of Old Masters in America, as described by Reist in Chapter 11. What was the difference between Knoedler’s success and Goupil’s failure, then? The answer is, at least in part, personal connections – and networks – again. Reist shows how Knoedler’s collaborator, Charles Carstairs, ushered in new relationships with London and Paris, and carried out complex, yet successful and profitable, negotiations with multimillionaire American buyers such as Henry Clay Frick, P. A. B. Widener and Andrew W. Mellon. The Old Master market went on to penetrate and involve other parts of the world, and its development had not only the usual social, financial and cultural elements that were necessary to acclimatize to in any new scenario, but also political and colonial implications. The last three essays in the book, Chapters 12 to 14, by Jelena Todorović, Monique Webber and Jillian Carman, investigate hitherto unexplored cultural geographies of the Old Master market and illustrate the role(s) that such a market could assume in newly founded countries or in former colonies. It makes clear, too, that each country developed its interest in the Old Masters for a variety of reasons, and often did so with distinctive twists to any overall emerging pattern. Todorović explores the commercial connections of the State Art Collection in the nascent Kingdom of Yugoslavia, revealing the part that Joseph Duveen played in its creation, through his friendship with the Prince Regent of Yugoslavia Paul Karadordević, illustrating how personal friendship and personal ambition were deeply connected to political strategies and political ambition. Old Master paintings were given by Duveen to the new nation at favourable terms as tokens of friendship, in the hope of obtaining honour and status, and in the attempt to develop a new market when America was in the grip of the economic recession. On the other hand, these pictures were exploited by Prince Paul as political instruments and imaginary ambassadors of an ideal state. The Old Masters performed a role beyond their connoisseurial value also in Australia: Webber illustrates how the purchases of Old Masters fundamentally altered Melbourne’s engagement

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with the European past and how their acquisition, paradoxically, widened the distance between Australia and Europe and enlarged the gulf that they had intended to bridge. The last word of this volume goes to Jillian Carman, who investigates the Old Master market in the former British and Dutch colony of South Africa. Carman asks why, even if the first white settlers at the Cape in 1652 were Dutch, they left no heritage of Dutch (or other) Old Masters collections or trade. Carman demonstrates that the principal reason for this disinterest was a lack of resources and wealth. She also shows how the Old Master market developed relatively late in South Africa, in the first decades of the twentieth century, in connection with activities of the Randlords. These tense, complex and contradictory entanglements of magnanimity with avarice, and of imperialist aggrandisement with cultural aspiration are explicitly described in Carman’s chapter but are, to different degrees, implicit in all the contributions to this volume, and present throughout the history of the Old Master market. All the chapters describe great public and private generosity coexisting with public and private greed; they illustrate cases in which a shared quest for beauty and knowledge was often combined with cultural theft and social injustices. These contradictory elements are often present within the actions of the same actors: one dealer can be behind grand gestures of public support and illegal exports; and one nation’s loss of historic art is another nation’s new gain of cultural patrimony. Perhaps it is because of the coexistence of these contrasting aspects that the history of the Old Master market remains so compelling today.

Notes 1

2

3 4

Gerald Reitlinger, The Economics of Taste: The Rise and Fall of Picture Prices, 1760– 1960 (London: Barrie & Rockliff, 1961–70), 207–40. The current book covers Old Master painting; it is hoped that other scholars will be encouraged to undertake a similar investigation in relation to the historical art market for drawings and sculpture by the Old Masters. Pamela Fletcher and Anne Helmreich, ‘Epilogue: Reframing the “International Art Market” ’, in Art Crossing Borders: The Internationalisation of the Art Market in the Age of Nation States, 1750–1914, ed. Jan Dirk Baetens and Dries Lyna (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 327–42. Ibid., 338. There is much published on the modern European art market during the nineteenth century. For the situation in France, see Marie-Claude Chaudonneret, ‘Collectionner l’art contemporain, 1820–1840: l’exemple des banquiers’, in Collections et marché de l’art en France, 1789–1848, ed. Monica Preti-Hamard and Philippe Senechal (Rennes: Presses Universitaires, 2005), 273–82. For the UK, see Pamela Fletcher and Anne Helmreich, eds, The Rise of the Modern Art Market in London, 1850–1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011); Pamela Fletcher, ‘The Grand Tour on Bond Street: Cosmopolitanism and the Commercial Art Gallery in Victorian London’, Visual Culture in Britain 12, no. 2 (2011): 139–53; Dianne Sachko Macleod, Art and the Victorian Middle Class: Money and the Making of Cultural Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). For the Netherlands, see Annemieke Hoogenboom, ‘Art for the Market: Contemporary Painting in the Netherlands in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century’, Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History

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6

7

8 9 10 11 12

13

Introduction of Art 22, no. 3 (1993–4): 130. For Germany, see Robin Lenman, Artists and Society in Germany, 1850–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997). For the USA, see Lynn Catterson, ed., Dealing Art on Both Sides of the Atlantic, 1860–1940 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2017). Reitlinger, Economics of Taste; Iain Pears, The Discovery of Painting: The Growth of Interest in the Arts in England, 1680–1768 (New Haven, CT, and London: Paul Mellon Centre and Yale University Press 1988); Louise Lippincott, Selling Art in Georgian London: Rise of Arthur Pond (New Haven, CT, and London: Paul Mellon Centre and Yale University Press, 1983). Penny’s detailed biographies of dealers in the National Gallery Catalogues of Italian painting remain a crucial resource; see Nicholas Penny, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century: Italian Paintings, Volume I: Bergamo, Brescia and Cremona (London: National Gallery Company, 2004) and Volume II: Venice, 1540–1600 (London: National Gallery Company, 2008). Linda Borean and Stefania Mason, eds, Figure di collezionisti a Venezia tra cinque e seicento (Udine: Forum, 2002); Linda Borean and Stefania Mason, eds, Il collezionismo d’arte a Venezia, 3 vols (Venice: Marsilio, 2007–9); and Linda Borean, La Galleria Manfrin a Venezia: l’ultima collezione d’arte della Serenissima (Udine: Forum, 2018). Donata Levi, ‘La professionalizzazione della figura dell’esperto in Inghilterra ed in Francia’, in Collections et marché de l’art en France, 1789–1848, ed. Monica Preti-Hamard and Philippe Sénéchal (Rennes: Presses Universitaires, 2005), 57–72; Donata Levi, ‘ “Let Agents be Sent to All the Cities in Italy”: British Public Museums and the Italian Art Market in the Mid-Nineteenth Century’, in Victorian and Edwardian Responses to the Italian Renaissance, ed. John E. Law and Lene Østermark-Johansen (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 33–53. For example, David Ormrod, ‘Dealers, Collectors and Connoisseurship in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century London, 1660–1760’, in Kunstsammeln und Geschmack im 18. Jahrhundert, ed. Michael North (Berlin: Berliner WissenschaftsVerlag, 2002); Marketing Art in the British Isles, 1700 to the Present (Burlington: Ashgate, 2012). Also Avery-Quash and Huemer, eds, London and the Emergence of a European Art Market, 1780–1820 (Los Angeles, CA: Getty Publications, 2019). For example, Inge Reist, ed., British Models of Art Collecting and the American Response: Reflections Across the Pond (Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014). Morna O’Neill, Hugh Lane: The Art Market and the Art Museum, 1893–1915 (New Haven, CT, and London: Paul Mellon Centre and Yale University Press, 2018). Baetens and Lyna, eds, Art Crossing Borders. John Michael Montias, Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic Study of the Seventeenth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982). Hans J. Van Miegroet and Neil De Marchi, ‘Transforming the Paris Art Market, 1718–1750’, in Mapping Markets for Paintings in Early Modern Europe, 1450–1750 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 391–410; Filiep Vermeylen, Painting for the Market: Commercialization of Art in Antwerp’s Golden Age (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003). Grischka Petri, Arrangement in Business: The Art Market and Career of James McNeill Whistler (Hildesheim: Olms, 2011), 16–18; Thomas M. Bayer and John R. Page, The Development of the Art Market in England: Money as Muse, 1730–1900 (London: Pickering: 2011). See, however, the methodological points raised by Anne Helmreich’s review of the book in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 11 (2012), online at: https:// www.19thc-artworldwide.org/index.php/spring12/the-development-of-the-artmarket-in-england-money-as-muse-17301900-by-thomas-m-bayer-and-john-r-page (accessed 25 May 2020).

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14 Anne Helmreich, ‘The Global: Goupil & Cie/Boussod, Valadon & Cie and International Networks’, in Anne Helmreich and Pamela Fletcher, ‘Local/Global: Mapping Nineteenth-Century London’s Art Market’, Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide, 11 (2012), online, ibid. 15 Léa Saint-Raymond, ‘How to Get Rich as an Artist: The Case of Félix Ziem: Evidence from his Account Book from 1850 through 1883’, Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 15 (2016), online at: https://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring16/saint-raymondon-how-to-get-rich-as-an-artist-felix-ziem (accessed 25 May 2020). Also Thomas Skowronek, ‘Anamorphosis of Uexpected Results: On the Epistemological Culture of Art Market Visualisations’, Journal of Art Market Studies 1 (2017), online at: https:// fokum-jams.org/index.php/jams/article/view/12 (accessed 25 May 2020) and DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23690/jams.v1i2.12. Some statistical examinations – such as Dakshina G. De Silva, Marina Gertsberg, Georgia Kosmopoulou and Rachel Pownall, ‘Market Evolution of Art Dealers’, SSRN Research Papers (2017), online at: https:// papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2866949 (accessed 25 May 2020) – are of limited value to historians because they infer generalities from partial datasets. 16 Barbara Pezzini and Alan Crookham, ‘Transatlantic Transactions and the Domestic Market: The Agnew’s Stock Books in 1894–1895’, British Art Studies 12 (2019), online at: https://www.britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/issue-index/issue-12/agnews-stockbooks (accessed 25 May 2020). 17 George Redford, Art Sales (London: Whitefriars Press, 1888); Algernon Graves, Art Sales (London: Bradbury, 1921); William Roberts, Memorials of Christie’s (London: Bell, 1897); Frits Lugt, Répertoire des Catalogues de Ventes Publiques (4 vols) (Paris: 1938–64), now published online by Brill at: https://primarysources.brillonline.com/ browse/art-sales-catalogues-online (accessed 25 May 2020); Reitlinger, Economics of Taste, with caveats: Guido Guerzoni, ‘Reflections on Historical Series of Art Prices: Reitlinger’s Data Revisited’, Journal of Cultural Economics 19, no. 3 (1995): 251–60. 18 Hugh Brigstocke, William Buchanan and the 19th Century Art Trade: 100 Letters to His Agents in London and Italy (London: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 1982). 19 Charles Sebag-Montefiore with Julia I. Armstrong-Totten, A Dynasty of Dealers: John Smith and Successors, 1801–1924: A Study of the Art Market in Nineteenth-Century London (Arundel: Roxburghe Club, 2013); Paul Tucker, A Connoisseur and His Clients: The Correspondence of Charles Fairfax Murray with Frederic Burton, Wilhelm Bode and Julius Meyer, 1867–1914 (London: Walpole Society, 2017). 20 William Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting: With a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution (London: Printed for R. Ackerman, 1824); James Henry Duveen, Collection and Recollections: A Century and a Half of Art Deals (London: Jarrolds, 1935); ibid., Secrets of an Art Dealer (London: R. Hale and Company [1937]); he also published The Rise of the House of Duveen (London/New York: Longmans, Green, 1957). 21 See Francis Russell, ‘James Christie, Auctioneer and More’, in London and the Emergence, ed. Avery-Quash and Huemer, 205–16; Lynda McLeod, ‘James Christie and His Auction House’, Art Libraries Journal 33, no. 1 (2008): 28–34; Jeremy Howard, ed., Colnaghi: The History (London: Colnaghi, 2010); Susanna Avery-Quash, ‘ “The Volatile and Vivacious Connoisseur of the Old School”: A Portrait of the Victorian Art Dealer Martin Colnaghi (1821–1908) and His Relationship with the National Gallery, London’, Colnaghi Studies Journal 1 (2017): 86–109; Barbara Pezzini, ‘The Burlington Magazine, The Burlington Gazette and The Connoisseur: The Art Periodical and the

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27 28 29

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Introduction Market for Old-Master Paintings in Edwardian London’, Visual Resources 29, no. 3 (2013): 154–83. Recent conferences include Negotiating Art: Dealers and Museum, 1855–2015 (London: National Gallery, 1–2 April 2016) and Art Dealers, America and the International Art Market, 1880–1930 (Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Center, 18–19 January 2018). A pioneer was Ellis Waterhouse (1905–85), who did much to build up the rich holdings of private collections material, today preserved in the National Gallery’s library. On the art market as a field, see See Barbara Pezzini, ‘Making a Market for Art, Agnew’s and the National Gallery’ (PhD dissertation, University of Manchester, 2018), 51–6. See, The Diary of John Evelyn, 1640–1706, II (London and New York: Dunne, 1879), 188 and 339. Francis Haskell, Rediscoveries in Art: Some Aspects of Taste, Fashion and Collecting in England and France (London: Phaidon, 1976), where time and again he underlines that the ‘Old Masters’ represented the most respected and conventional taste of the day – he mentions, in relation to them, for instance, ‘conventional taste’ and ‘edifice of taste’ (p. 84), ‘established canon’ (p. 86) and ‘the norm’ (p. 78). See Susanna Avery-Quash, ‘The Growth of Interest in Collecting Early Italian Art with Special Reference to Paintings in the National Gallery’, in Dillian Gordon, National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century: Italian Paintings, Volume I (London: National Gallery, 2003), xxiv–xliv; Louise Bourdua, ‘Introduction’, in ‘The Discovery of the Trecento in the Long Nineteenth Century’, Special Issue, ed. Louise Bourdua, Predella Journal of the Visual Arts 41–2 (2017), online at: http://wrap.warwick.ac. uk/114070/1/WRAP-discovery-Trecento-long-nineteenthcentury-Bourdua-2017.pdf (accessed 25 May 2020). Giles Waterfield and Florian Illies, ‘Waagen in England’, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 37 (1995): 47–59. Elizabeth A. Pergam, The Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857: Entrepreneurs, Connoisseurs and the Public (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011). See Bénédicte Miyamoto, ‘British Buying Patterns at Auction Sales, 1780–1800: Did the Influx of European Art have an Impact on the British Public’s Preferences?’, in London and the Emergence, ed. Avery-Quash and Huemer, 34–50. See, for instance, Mark Evans with Stephen Calloway and Susan Owens, John Constable: The Making of a Master (London: V&A Publishing, 2014). There was much traditional hostility between contemporary practitioners and the Old Masters, because the latter were seen as potential rivals for the affection and purse strings of patrons; on this point, see Haskell, Rediscoveries, 98. For Constable’s own powerful opposition, see ibid., 107, 182 n. 24 and 204 n. 85. The sources for this graph are the some 30 million books digitized by Google Books, analysed through google Ngrams, see: https://books.google.com/ngrams (accessed 25 May 2020). Interestingly, the use of the term ‘Old Master’ appears to begin its decline when the market for this art was still strong, confirming the intuition of Everett Rogers in the Diffusion of Innovation (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962) that when a trend reaches its peak, the trend is, in fact, exhausted. See their Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology, first published in 1981 (King’s Lynn: Pandora). In the publicity surrounding its ‘Female Triumphant’ exhibition (January 2019), Sotheby’s, New York, referred to the exhibited group of important historical

Introduction

34 35 36 37

38

39 40 41 42 43

44 45

46 47 48 49

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women painters as ‘Old Master female artists’; see online at: www.sothebys.com/en/ articles/masterworks-by-trailblazing-female-artists-spanning-the-16th-through-the19th-centuries (accessed 18 July 2019). On Vasari’s geographical canon, and its limits, see Thomas da Costa Kauffman, Towards a Geography of Art (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2004): 28–30. See Hubert Locher, The Idea of the Canon and Canon Formation in Art History (Leiden: Brill, 2012). See Haskell, Rediscoveries, passim, starting at p. 21, in relation to the shifting taste and fashion for certain Old Masters of the notion of ‘knocking down . . . putting up’. Bénédicte Miyamoto, ‘ “Directions to Know a Good Picture”: Marketing National School Categories to the British Public in the Long Eighteenth Century’, in Art Crossing Borders, ed. Baetens and Lyna, 64–98. See Jan Dirk Baetens, ‘The General Exhibition of Pictures of 1851: National Schools and International Trade in the Mid-Victorian Art Market’, Visual Culture in Britain 17, no. 3 (2016): 270–89. See Catherine Scallen, Rembrandt, Reputation and the Practice of Connoisseurship (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004). Fletcher and Helmreich, ‘Epilogue’, 334. Achille Locatelli Milesi, ‘La valutazione commerciale delle opere artistiche’, Emporium 67, no. 42 (1928): 334–40. Ibid., 336. On the relationship between critics and dealers in the modern art sector, see Harrison White and Cynthia White, Canvases and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting World (New York: Wiley, 1965); Jan Dirk Baetens, ‘Vanguard Economics, Rearguard Art: Gustave Coûteaux and the Modernist Myth of the Dealer-Critic System’, Oxford Art Journal 33, no. 1 (March 2010): 25–41, online at: https://academic. oup.com/oaj/article-abstract/33/1/25/1443086?redirectedFrom=fulltext (accessed 25 May 2020); Anne Helmreich and Pamela Fletcher, ‘The Periodical and the Art Market: Investigating the “Dealer-Critic System” in Victorian England’, Victorian Periodicals Review 41, no. 3 (2008): 323–51. For its implication for the Old Master market, see Pezzini, ‘The Burlington Magazine’. Important also is Ivan Gaskell, ‘Tradesmen as Scholars: Interdependencies in the Study and Exchange of Art’, in Art History and Its Institutions: Foundations of a Discipline, ed. Elizabeth Mansfield (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 146–62. Milesi, ‘Valutazione’, 340. An interesting case in point of the interconnection of market and criticism is George Romney, see Barbara Pezzini and Alycen Mitchell, ‘ “Blown into Glittering by the Popular Breath”: The Relationship between George Romney’s Critical Reputation and the Art Market’, The Burlington Magazine 157 (2015): 465–73. Haskell, Rediscoveries, 32–8, 146–50; and for Le Brun’s claims that he had discovered various painters, including Holbein, Ribera and Louis Le Nain, ibid., 30, 35. On Celotti, see Penny, National Gallery Catalogues, Volume II , 363–4. See Adolfo Venturi, Storia dell’Arte Italiana, vol. 9 (Milano: Hoepli, 1908–36), vii, x, 30, 87, 115, 403–6, 419, 449, 615, 745, 951. See Haskell, Rediscoveries, 23, 112–18. In ibid., 73, Haskell also notes as influences affecting taste both ‘availability’ of paintings on the art market as well as the ‘fear of forgery’. Originally, this new taste disrupted the canon before becoming part of it as it was deemed poisonous to the artistic education of aspiring young painters, who might be

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53 54 55

56

57

58 59

60 61

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Introduction infected by its barbarous elements and, in turn, slow down or even completely prevent the forward progress of the art of painting; on this point, see Haskell, Rediscoveries, ch. 3, ‘The Two Temptations’. Brigstocke, William Buchanan, 35, 38. Avery-Quash, ‘Growth of Interest’, xxx–xxxi. Of course, Eastlake’s two roles as Director of the National Gallery and President of the Royal Academy were by their very nature conflictual: on the one hand, he wanted to broaden the remit of the National Gallery’s holdings, while on the other, he was equally keen to put the best models of artistic excellence and beauty before impressionable art students. The dilemma revolved around which of three judging criteria were deemed more or most important: intrinsic excellence, educational example or historical interest; see Haskell, Discoveries, 103, 107. See Iva Pasini Tržec and Ljerka Dulibic, ‘Le acquisizioni venete del vescovo Strossmayer’, MDCCC 1800 3 (2014): 99–114. Reitlinger, Economics of Taste, 256, 379. Shelley M. Bennett, ‘The Formation of Henry E. Huntington’s Collection of British Painting’, in British Painting at the Huntington (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 1–13. When adjusted for inflation, this is still the highest sum ever paid for a picture by Gainsborough. Jan Baetens and Dries Lyna, ‘Introduction: Towards an International History of the Nineteenth-Century Art Trade’, in Art Crossing Borders, ed. by Baetens and Lyna, 4. Arbitrage is the practice of taking advantage of a price difference between two or more markets. See Guido Guerzoni, ‘The Export of Works of Art from Italy to the United Kingdom, 1792–1830’, in London and the Emergence, ed. Avery-Quash and Huemer, 67–81; Donata Levi, ‘Let Agents be Sent to All the Cities of Italy’: British Public Museums and the Italian Art Market in the Mid-Nineteenth Century’, in Victorian and Edwardian Responses to the Italian Renaissance, ed. John E. Law and Lene Østermark-Johansen (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 33–53. Also Patrizia Cappellini, ‘Trading Old Masters in Florence 1890–1914: Heritage Protection and the Florentine Art Trade in PostUnification Italy’, Journal of the History of Collections 31 (2019): 363–71. Avery-Quash, ‘Growth of Interest’, xxxii. Federica Giacomini, Per reale vantaggio delle arti e della storia: Vincenzo Camuccini e il restauro dei dipinti a Roma nella prima metà dell‘ottocento (Roma: Quasar, 2007), 115–36. See Donata Levi, ‘Carlo Lasinio: Curator, Collector and Dealer’, The Burlington Magazine 135 (1993): 133–48, and Chapter 1 by Robert Skwirblies in this volume. See, for instance, Helen Rees Leahy, ‘Art Exports and the Construction of National Heritage in Late Victorian and Edwardian Britain’, in Economic Engagements with Art, ed. Neil de Marchi and Craufurd D. W. Goodwin (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), 197–208. Quoted in Jan Baetens and Dries Lyna, ‘The Education of the Art Market: National Schools and International Trade in the Long Nineteenth Century’, in Art Crossing Borders, ed. Baetens and Lyna, 34. For instance, in 1920, Demotte of Paris listed two branches in Paris and New York; Arthur Tooth & Son in London and New York; Duveen Brothers in Paris and New York; Jacques Seligmann et fils in Paris and New York; and Lewis and Simmons in London, Paris and New York. The Italian art dealers, Canessa, had branches in Naples, Paris and New York.

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64 The Matsukata Collection: Complete Catalogue of the European Art, I (Tokyo: National Museum of Western Art, 2018), cat. 29, 86 and cat. 692, 237 and cat. 727, 246 and cat. 32, 86. Megumi Jingaoka kindly granted access to these records. 65 An exception was the 6th Earl of Harewood (1882–1947), who acquired some important Italian Renaissance Old Masters for his Yorkshire seat during the first two decades of the twentieth century. See Nicholas Penny’s entry on the 6th Earl of Harewood, National Gallery Catalogues, Volume II , 455–8. 66 On this point, see Haskell, Rediscoveries, 48. 67 See a directory of American collectors in: https://research.frick.org/directory (accessed 25 May 2020). 68 For instance, see Haskell, Rediscoveries, 50, where he notes Buchanan’s attempt to sell Old Masters to the British government as the nucleus of a national collection as well as his attempts to do something similar in relation to Philadelphia. 69 Francis Haskell in Haskell, Rediscoveries, 44, cited King George III’s comment that all his noblemen had become picture dealers. 70 See Susanna Avery-Quash, ‘Hudson, Eastlake e la National Gallery di Londra’, in Sir James Hudson nel Risorgimento italiano, ed. E. Greppi and E. Pagella (Turin: Rubbettino 2012), 257–85. 71 See Julia Armstrong-Totten, ‘From Jack-of-all-trades to Professional: The Development of the Early Modern Picture Dealer in Eighteenth-Century London’, in London and the Emergence, ed. Avery-Quash and Huemer, 209–10. 72 Mark Westgarth, ‘ “Florid-Looking Speculators in Art and Virtu”: The London Picture Trade, c. 1850’, in The Rise of the Modern Art Market, ed. Fletcher and Helmreich, 20–46. 73 See Mark Westgarth’s ‘Antique Dealer Project’ website at: https://antiquetrade.leeds. ac.uk (accessed 18 July 2019). 74 Bayer and Page, The Development, 103. 75 On Sedelmeyer, see Christian Huemer, ‘Charles Sedelmeyer’s Theatricality: Art and Speculation in Late Nineteenth-Century Paris’, in Artwork through the Market: The Past and the Present, ed. Ján Bakoš (Bratislava: Slowakische Academy of Sciences, 2004), 109–24. 76 O’Neill, Hugh Lane, 17. 77 For example, Donato Esposito, ‘Artist in Residence: Joshua Reynolds at No. 47, Leicester Fields’, in The Georgian London Town House: Building, Collecting and Display, ed. Susanna Avery-Quash and Kate Retford (New York and London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 191–210. 78 For Farrer, see Mark Westgarth, A Biographical Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Antique and Curiosity Dealer (Glasgow: Regional Furniture Society, 2009), Regional Furniture, XXIII , 99–101. 79 Fletcher, ‘Shopping for Art’, in The Rise of the Modern Art Market, ed. Fletcher and Helmreich, 47–64; Anne Helmreich, ‘The Art Market and the Spaces of Sociability in Victorian London’, Victorian Studies 59 (2017): 436–49; Christian Huemer, ‘Crossing Thresholds: The Hybrid Identity of Late Nineteenth-Century Art Dealers’, in Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration and Convergence, ed. Jaynie Anderson (Melbourne: Mygunah Press, 2009), 1007–11. 80 Gustave Flaubert, Sentimental Education: The Story of a Young Man [L’Éducation sentimentale: histoire d’un jeune homme, 1869] (New York and London: Donne, 1904), 27; online: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34828/34828-h/34828-h.htm (accessed 30 August 2019).

34 81

82 83

84 85 86

87

88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109

Introduction Robert Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei als Preussisches Kulturgut: Gemäldesammlungen, Kunsthandel und Museumspolitik, 1797–1830 (Berlin and Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2017), 400–2. For Guggenheim, see Penny, National Gallery Catalogues, Volume I, 366. For photographs of Shirleys, see the front matter advertisements in The Burlington Magazine 10, no. 45 (1906): s. p.; for the Marlborough Gallery’s interior, see American Art News 11, no. 30 (1913): 6. Archives of the National Gallery, London (hereafter, NGA) NG1/2, National Gallery Board Minutes, Meeting of 7 July 1853, 268. Westgarth, Dictionary, 9. A few dealers chose a different business model; for instance, Hugh Lane wished to be associated with practising artists and so conducted his business from Lindley House in Chelsea’s artistic quarter; see O’Neill, Hugh Lane, 27–34. See Léa Saint-Raymond, ‘Le pari des enchères: le lancement de nouveaux marches artistiques à Paris entre les années, 1830 et 1939’ (PhD dissertation, Université Paris Nanterre, 2018). See Sabrina Spinazzé, ‘Artisti-antiquari a Roma tra la fine dell’ottocento e l’inizio del novecento: lo studio e la galleria di Attilio Simonetti’, Studiolo 8 (2010): 103–22. See Meryle Secrest, Duveen: A Life in Art (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 100. See Fletcher, ‘Shopping for Art’, 47–64. See Harrison C. White, Markets from Networks: Socioeconomic Models of Production (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), esp. 245–99. Pezzini, ‘The Burlington Magazine’, 154–8. Duveen’s advertisements in American Art News 4, no. 13 (1906): 8; The Burlington Magazine 9 (1906): s.p. Agnew’s monthly full-page adverts were published in The Burlington Magazine from vol. 14, no. 72 (March 1909) to vol. 16, no. 82 (January 1910). See Julia Armstrong-Totten, ‘Expand the Audience, Increase the Profits: Motivations behind the Private Contract Sale’, in The Circulation of Works of Art in the Revolutionary Era, 1789–1848, ed. Roberta Panzanelli and Monica Preti-Hamard (Rennes: Presses Universitaires, 2007), 51. Armstrong-Totten, ‘Jack-of-all-trades’, 206. Ibid., 207. See Susan Casteras and Colleen Denney, eds, The Grosvenor Gallery: A Palace of Art in Victorian England (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1996). See Barbara Pezzini, ‘Making a Market for Art’, 179–91. See Avery-Quash, ‘Volatile and Vivacious Connoisseur’, 90. Catalogue of the Dowdeswell and Blakeslee Collections of Valuable Paintings (New York: American Art Association, 1904). ‘Art Sales’, Brush and Pencil 14 (July 1904): 294. ‘Art Dealer Suicide in His Fifth Avenue Shop’, The New York Times, 8 March 1914, 6. See Chapter 10 by Agnès Penot in this volume. See Picture Stock Book 9, NGA, NGA27/1/1/11. See William Agnew’s 1886 Holiday Jottings, NGA, NGA27/27/1. James Henry Duveen, Secrets of an Art Dealer (New York: Dutton, 1958). See Who’s Who in Art (London: Art Trade Press, 1927). Jean-Baptiste Descamps, La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandaise, 4 vols (Paris: Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1753–64); François-Charles Joullain, Répertoire de tableaux: dessins et estampes , ouvrage utile aux amateurs. Première partie [:Tableaux]

Introduction

110 111 112 113

35

[unfinished] (Paris: Demonville, 1783); ibid., Réflexion sur la peinture et sur la sculpture, 2nd, enlarged edn (Paris: A. Metz, 1786 ); Jean-Baptiste Le Brun, Galerie des peintres flamands, hollandais et allemande (Paris: Chez l’auteur et chez Poignant and Amsterdam: Pierre Fouquet, 1792–6). Brigstocke, William Buchanan, 176–7; the quotation comes from a letter from Buchanan to his agent, Stewart, 13 March 1804. See Nicholas Penny and Karen Serres, ‘Duveen and the Decorators (Joseph Duveen)’, The Burlington Magazine 149 (2007): 400–6 (DOI: 10.2307/20074865). See NGA, NG5/131/9, letter from Colnaghi’s, 22 December 1856. For Hume, see Westgarth, Dictionary, 120.

36

Part One

Developing European Networks, 1780–1894

37

38

1

The European Market for Italian Old Masters after Napoleon Robert Skwirblies

The period between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the beginning of the series of new revolutions (1815–30) was to define the market for Old Master paintings for the entire nineteenth century.1 Although brief, these fifteen years were crucial for three main reasons: above all, a large quantity of works of art circulated throughout Europe, including a vast amount of objects previously smuggled or traded during the post-revolutionary years. Second, an increasing number of effective collaborations were established between state officials, collectors and dealers. Sometimes one person fulfilled all three roles, but, generally speaking, the dealer became a noticeably more independent agent during the period under review. Finally, increasing knowledge about and demand for old paintings was intertwined with the rise of public museums with active acquisition policies. This chapter will focus on the turning point for the development of the market for Italian Old Masters, with a brief investigation of those protagonists and collections that represent key moments in that story. The methodological approach has been to draw general conclusions from analysing and comparing specific case studies, an approach best suited to the limited availability of empirical evidence.2 Indeed, the main difficulty for the historian is the lack of primary source material in this area: much of the trade was not documented, which is not surprising given that a large part of it was conducted in violation of export restrictions or simply to avoid paying taxes.3 An exception is the cache of family letters of Vincenzo and Pietro Camuccini dating to the Napoleonic era, which gives an idea of these dealers’ clandestine methods of bringing Old Master paintings of the highest quality from Rome to England for sale.4 They can be studied alongside the letters of two British art dealers, William Buchanan and John Smith, an exercise which sheds useful light on the contemporaneous British context.5 In most cases, though, hints and claims about smuggled works of art and dubious sales are often all that is left, which has led to speculation about the sums of money involved in various transactions.6 Further difficulties for historians arise in relation to attribution and identifying the works of art mentioned in primary documentation: official documents such as licenses, inventories and sale catalogues provide only an asserted authenticity so that, in most cases, it cannot be proved whether an offered or examined picture was an original, a copy, a forgery or a painting by another hand.7 What can be 39

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said, even from analysing only the preserved export licenses usually issued by professors and functionaries of the Florentine and Milanese art academies or the papal court (and appointed for that purpose), is that there was a noticeable increase in export activity during the period, even while there were increasingly public debates about the value of works of art as national or cultural treasures that should be protected.8

Conditions for a Thriving Art Market During the first fifteen years of the nineteenth century, the documented number of Italian paintings brought to auction according to the data in the Getty Provenance databases was over 32,000, a third higher than in the previous twenty years, and forming an exceptional peak.9 However, in the following years between 1815 and 1830, there were still another 27,000 lots of Italian paintings listed in sale catalogues.10 This generic observation concurs with the high number of – mostly undocumented – mass auctions and sales in Italy during and after the late Napoleonic period (Fig. 1.1).11 Hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of paintings might be sold during one auction; the pictures sold were mostly not by famous top-end masters with equivalent high

Fig. 1.1 Announcement for a public auction of 1,879 paintings and prints in Venice, 1813. Print, format unknown. Venice, Archivio di Stato, Direzione dipartimentale del Demanio, Edwards’ folders, vol. 1, n.p. Photograph by the author.

Italian Old Masters after Napoleon

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prices, but were anonymous or minor works.12 Such objects very often found their way into sales abroad given that the lower their estimated value was, the lower the associated fees and taxes were.13 Indeed, the export restrictions that were reinforced by law in Tuscany in 1817 and also two years later in northern Italy14 were concentrated on objects considered precious and significant for the country’s identity.15 In a similar vein, the Pacca Edict of 1820 strengthened the export controls in the Roman Papal State, and again only really affected the most esteemed, and hence most expensive, paintings.16 These measures to enforce control led to an increasing number of fine art objects being officially presented, and then marked and sealed for exportation in the following years, which had the knock-on effect that, in 1823, the Florentine Academy introduced printed forms for the purpose.17 This increase in paperwork had its own problems because individual states in the Italian Peninsula lacked sufficient resources to deal with the sheer number of requests. Consequently, to speed things up and to facilitate trade in the art market, in 1830, the Brera Academy in Milan, responsible for the examination and authorization of paintings that were to leave the state, supported a dealer’s request to shorten the bureaucratic procedures.18 Similar tendencies can be identified in Bologna, where already in the early 1820s the Academy was greatly in favour of allowing paintings that were considered less important to leave Italian shores (Fig. 1.2).19 In effect, even though the restrictions were never officially loosened, Italian legislation across the country limited only the top end of the market for Old Masters,

Fig. 1.2 Bartolomeo Ramenghi, called Bagnacavallo, Madonna with Saints Alo and Petronius, c. 1500–30. Oil on wood, 195 × 172 cm. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. © Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie.

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while it deregulated its middle and lower sections. The paintings which, as a result, accumulated in the post-revolutionary era in North-Western Europe contributed significantly to the European art market in the following years.20 Furthermore, the upcoming liberalization, which took place at the end of a period of war that had hindered trade and circulation of goods in Europe for about twenty years, also favoured the development of a transnational network of dealers, mediators and connoisseurs.21

Places, Professions and Subjects The development of the modern market for Old Master paintings included two important structural changes: professionalization and differentiation. Administrative reforms that had taken place during the revolutionary and Napoleonic eras, accompanied by campaigns of secularization and the creation of collecting points for works of art helped to establish local and regional storage hubs and exhibition spaces, both of which encouraged the trade in Old Master paintings. Of most significance were the art academies of Milan, Venice, Florence and Bologna, but also of smaller centres such as Padua, Ferrara and Bergamo. These academies extended their traditional functions of offering teaching to aspiring artists and acting as loci of expertise concerning local and regional artists and historical specimens. During the revolutionary period, they gained a new and explicitly political mandate, which they maintained during the Restoration era. From being mere collecting points of secularized works of fine arts, the professors and staff of the academies became the responsible authorities not only for the classification and valuation of works of art they found or which were brought to their attention, but also for decisions that determined either the protection or alienation of these same objects.22 While London, Paris and Northern Europe remained the main destinations for most trade negotiations,23 the network of sellers, advisers, diplomats, shippers and dealers across Europe began to diversify. What had previously been regarded as secondary centres of trade now became main points of reference, as the understanding of circulation increasingly encompassed such practical matters as transport, storage and making Old Master paintings visible prior to their sales. Cities in German lands that hosted traditional fairs, such as Frankfurt and Leipzig, quickly responded to the flood of paintings from Italy by including sections for Old Masters in them, and soon became meeting points for dealers and agents.24 Other cities and towns in geographically advantaged positions in Northern Europe similarly began to play a role as safe storage and exhibition points, good examples being Basel, Aachen, Berlin and Brussels,25 while other prominent centres built on their strengths as traditional collectors’ cities, including Vienna and Amsterdam.26 Finally, cities with important ports became intermediate centres for the market as well, such as Hamburg.27 The professionalization and differentiation of the art market network also affected dealers. While artists and restorers, diplomats and functionaries, wealthy collectors and scholars continued to be part of the market in offering, acquiring and evaluating works of art, the profession of art dealer became ever more precise and independent. Dealers spent increasing amounts of time in finding, acquiring and arranging paintings, in

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stocking paintings and speculating with them, or offering and introducing them in either fixed or travelling exhibitions, with associated catalogues.28 These sale stocks were sometimes, especially early on in the period under consideration, camouflaged as noblemen’s galleries or private museum-like collections, but the increasing number of open-sale exhibitions and auctions demonstrates that an overt market became a factor in its own right.29 The increased availability, dispersal and circulation of works were important factors in the broadening of dealers’ portfolios and of collectors’ artistic interests. Besides perennial favourites, such as paintings by Raphael, Titian, the Carracci and Canaletto, the commercial focus widened to include earlier masters, the so-called ‘primitives’, and second-tier or unknown masters of a later date.30 Assisted by the growing number of such paintings in circulation and their comparatively low prices, these new categories of art became attractive ones for both dealers and buyers, especially those with some precise knowledge about them. They also assisted in the creation of modern art history by giving a new value and interest to works that previously would have been considered as mediocre and as such not worth the attention of the art market, academy or museum world – museums, as shown in this volume, becoming an especially important factor for changes in the art market.31

Growing Knowledge and Public Collecting The opening, enrichment and dissolution of the (post-)revolutionary museum in Paris, founded as the Musée Central in 1793 and renamed the Musée Napoléon from 1802 to 1815, and which, for about twenty years, was home to the world’s most important Italian paintings, marked the starting point for the wave of new public museums and private collections that arose during the Restoration period.32 Enhanced by systematic looting which involved a scrupulous selection of masterpieces, especially from Italy,33 the impact of the institution known today as the Louvre was immense. Although it was not the first public art collection to impose a scientific, historical narrative onto its collections, its influence was immense from various perspectives. Politically, it was a home for Europe’s liberated – and uprooted – cultural assets; materially, it unified works from all over Europe in one place; and aesthetically, it functioned as a gallery that included paintings from regions and periods that were not at the time universally considered classical or desirable. In the final years of its existence, the Musée Napoléon became an incarnation of Europe’s art history, seen not only as the development of schools and artistic pedigrees, but also as a complex system of transnational and international artistic and cultural interchanges.34 When the Musée Napoléon was dismantled in 1815, it was copied all over Europe, often with the very same works and principles of exhibition display.35 In various regions, the loss of individual items and their subsequent restitution provoked intense reflection on cultural identity.36 This broadening of ideas led not only to modern art history, including systematic and critical examination of pictures themselves and research concerning their historical sources,37 but also to a greater acceptance of the movement of works of art – especially to local, regional or national museums.38

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The museums themselves contributed to the art market’s professionalization in two ways: first, they provided normative (authenticated) visual material and scientific expertise; second, they acted as completely new players on the market – as institutions that were both potentially trendsetting and, especially in their early days, active as buyers. A noticeable impact on the market was a sustained preference for Italian paintings from the pre-Raphael period onwards as well as for Dutch and Flemish works, the latter of which remained bestsellers on the private market, too.39 Interestingly, with its claim to be the nation’s property, the Louvre had positioned itself in the role of a modern antagonist to private collecting – and even to the art market itself given that once works of art had been acquired and accessioned into the national collection, they were unlikely ever to reappear on the market. The various royal museums, national galleries and civic collections that emerged from this date reinforced this new status quo.40

Differentiation and Commercialization of Collections Some picture collections that became available for purchase before 1815 were then sold in subsequent years, be it in part or as a whole. Some were notable for the quality and quantity of their pictures, and being displayed in the lead-up to a sale were much discussed in public, and had a major impact on the market for Old Master painting in general and on the market for Italian painting in particular. One such example was the Orléans Collection, brought from Paris to London in 1792, and dispersed over the following years,41 and another was the former Giustiniani Collection, previously in Rome but from 1808 to 1815 in Paris for sale, and after its purchase, in Berlin.42 These major collections were accompanied by smaller, traditional noble collections that were likewise moved and sold, such as the Truchsess-Zeyl-Wurzach Collection from Vienna in 180343 or the Marescalchi Collection from Bologna in 1818,44 both of which were transferred to London. What is distinctive about many of the collections built up during the Napoleonic years or shortly afterwards is their scale and range of paintings they encompassed. Both elements are discernible in the collections of Cardinal Joseph Fesch in Rome45 and Edward Solly in Berlin,46 as each contained several thousand paintings, including a relatively large number of early and pre-Renaissance works. Similar tendencies can be found in many smaller collections of the day, notably those of Lucien Bonaparte in Rome, Paris and Munich;47 Raczyn´ski in Berlin and Posen;48 Esterházy in Vienna;49 and Boijmans in Utrecht.50 Another distinguishing characteristic of these collections is that they were made increasingly accessible to visitors of various kinds. The widening of interest in schools and periods of art had its foundation in intellectual curiosity and antiquarian scholarship, rooted both in the traditions of the eighteenth century and the most recent revolutionary changes. One result was the emergence of a completely new type of gallery, focusing on paintings as historical assets, and not (only) as models of acknowledged artistic excellence. The most distinct example of this novel type of collection with paintings acquired for their historic value as much as for any perceived aesthetic worth was the collection of Artaud de Montor in Paris, containing only early Italian paintings, which was published for the first time in 1808.51 A similar approach, combined with a perspective on Old Master paintings as

Italian Old Masters after Napoleon

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monuments of local identity, can be found in the activities of Teodoro Correr in Venice, who went on to bequeath his collection to his home town.52 Correr, Fesch and Solly were all collector-dealers, as was a common norm in early modern Europe. A crucial development, however, was the transformation of mediators and agents into merchants and dealers.53 One element of this evolution was the rise of new, unadulterated dealer-collectors. A good example of this new type of protagonist – in his case he operated with great stocks of paintings in Northern European markets – was Lambert Jan Nieuwenhuys.54 Another name worthy of mention in this connection is the Parisian restorer Féréol Bonnemaison, who arranged his collection explicitly as a sale exhibition. Its most precious part was the paintings from the former Giustiniani Collection, which had been transferred from a Roman noble palace to a Parisian salon, and which, together with the rest of the collection, was now displayed in a manner reminiscent of that in nearby Musée Napoléon: as a gallery of masterpieces arranged chronologically.55 In Berlin, Gaspare Weiß, printer and art dealer, again arranged his stock of Old Master paintings, prints and drawings, as well as contemporary paintings, separately in several rooms in a venue that he publicized as a ‘museum’, explicitly intended as a counterpart to public, permanent art collections.56 At the same time, he offered for sale altarpieces coming directly from Italy (Fig. 1.3). Similarly, Antonio and Carlo Sanquirico, sons of a Milanese theatre decorator, began to deal in Old Master paintings around 1815, travelling, as many others did, throughout Europe before establishing a shop in Venice.57 The arrangement of their stock must have been inspired by traditional local collections and it soon attracted attention, especially from foreign visitors to Venice, such that it quickly became a well-known picturesque tourist attraction.58

The Rise of Professional Art Dealers The merchant Leopold Bettendorf in Aachen was a dealer of mostly early Flemish, Dutch and German paintings, but he also offered works allegedly by Correggio and Giotto.59 He presented himself as an amateur but was generally regarded as a dealer. This case is typical of the early-nineteenth-century art market, when the boundaries between collectors, collector-dealers and dealers became increasingly fluid. A move towards art dealing as a major occupation can also be identified among a group of professional artists, who concentrated on the market for Old Masters. Furthermore, there were some print publishers who used their trade networks of colleagues and subsidiaries as well as the various fairs in which they participated, to transport, offer and sell Old Master paintings in addition to prints, for example Weiß in Berlin, Domenico Artaria in Mannheim and Johann Friedrich Frauenholz in Nuremberg.60 On his trip to Italy in 1817, Johann Heinrich Freidhoff, engraver and member of the Berlin Art Academy, bought many older works of art that were licensed for export as being artistically insignificant, but which he subsequently offered in Berlin as precious examples of early Italian art, obviously inspired by the famous Artaud Gallery.61 Within the community of painters and restorers, there were some, like Bonnemaison, who arranged areas of their studios as sale galleries. Vincenzo Camuccini in Rome was one such, who was at the same time a functionary of the Papal States tasked

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Fig. 1.3 Anonymous, after Giorgione, The Finding of the Holy Cross, c. 1817. Unknown etcher. Print, format unknown. Berlin, Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, HA I, Rep. 76, I, sect. 30, no. 47, vol. 2, fol. 109. © Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz.

with protecting artistic treasures from being exported.62 This contradictory double role was not exceptional to Bonnemaison; indeed, state and academy functionaries all over Italy were commonly simultaneous players in the art market,63 with their main income derived from their trade in Old Master copies and restorations.64 Marquard

Italian Old Masters after Napoleon

47

Wocher of Basel may be mentioned as one of the many European minor painters who employed the same business model – painting, copying, restoring and dealing in Old Masters.65 Finally, there were many agents and semi-professional traders active in the Old Master market for historical Italian and other types of pictures. There were speculators whose names are hardly known;66 clerics with antiquarian knowledge and access to secularized works of art, like Luigi Celotti;67 or nominal painters, like Alexander Day, who acted as a collaborator of the Camuccini in London. Alexis Delahante did the same for Bonnemaison (Fig. 1.4), while Felice Cartoni travelled as an agent for Prussian and English collectors throughout Italy.68 The latter even claimed to trade on the orders of the Prussian king – which was not exactly true, but which is suggestive at least of a new dimension of trade with prominent public individuals and institutions. Sovereigns like the Bavarian crown prince may still have behaved as noble amateurs had done in the days of August III of Saxony, when acquiring the masterpieces which formed the famous Dresden Gallery.69 However, it was now the nascent public museums that promised to become powerful protagonists within the art market – as was the case with public art institutions in Prussia, Bavaria and even London. Already by 1811, Delahante had sold a painting by Veronese to the British Institution,70 and from the moment they were established by the state, museums became potentially powerful collecting bodies. Cartoni’s acquisitions for both Solly and Count Gustav Adolf Ingenheim entered the Berlin Museum,71 while the Florentine Old Masters sold to the Bavarian crown prince

Fig. 1.4 Girolamo da Treviso, after Baldassarre Peruzzi, The Adoration of the Kings, 1523–4. Oil on wood, 144.2 × 125.7 cm. © The National Gallery, London.

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Fig. 1.5 An art dealer’s leaflet, 1827. Print, 30 × 17 cm. Berlin, Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, HA I, Rep. 76, I, sect. 30, no. 47, vol. 5, fol. 30. © Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz.

by the German-born Giovanni Metzger, a former engraver and restorer, ended up as treasures in the Munich Pinakothek.72 Besides those dealer-agents in Italy and their collaborators in Northern Europe who all had established studios, shops, stands at fairs or gallery rooms, a lot of dealers went on tour with their goods. While in the eighteenth century such itinerant collections had concerned mostly small and easily transportable items, after the Napoleonic Wars dealers would travel with many crates full of larger, more bulky items, including paintings. Most of these dealers were Italian, such as the Venetian Freemason Marziale Reghellini or the Milanese Antonio Fusi, the latter who introduced himself as ‘court jeweller’, offering dozens of large and small Old Master paintings, grouped as smallscale universal galleries, including works claimed to be by Correggio, Leonardo and Raphael, as well as by Giotto, Benozzo Gozzoli, Federico Barocci and Antonio Campi.73 Some pictures, especially former altarpieces, were described as important examples for the history of art, while others were advertised as traditional cabinet pieces. A similar strategy was adopted by the Belgian dealer Mathieu-Antoine van Parys, presumably coming from an artistic family, who crossed Europe with his ‘cabinet’ that he promoted through an accompanying printed list (Fig. 1.5).74

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Conclusion The art dealers’ portfolios briefly introduced in this chapter are perhaps the most striking testimony to the evolving and increasingly specialized market for Italian Old Masters: private collectors on the one hand, newly founded public museums on the other; names of famous masters and ‘beautiful pictures’, balanced by increasing numbers of rare treasures of hitherto neglected schools of painting, including the earliest masters and provincial schools; and traditional, long-standing noble galleries of fixed abode still in evidence but sitting, increasingly, alongside sale collections, founded from scratch yet, nonetheless, well ordered, often on the road, uprooted and always ready for new destinations.

Notes 1

2

3

4

5

The ideas presented in this chapter are based on my PhD thesis, recently published as a monograph: Robert Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei als Preußisches Kulturgut: Gemäldesammlungen, Kunsthandel und Museumspolitik, 1797–1830 (Berlin and Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2017). The sources offer a mix of general observations, detailed information and anecdotes on the conditions of trade, collecting habits and single acquisitions. See William Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting: With a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution (London: Ackermann, 1824); Frank Herrmann, The English as Collectors: A Documentary Sourcebook (London: John Murray, 1999). As a consequence, in-depth empirical studies are difficult to conduct, and emphasis has usually been placed on forming an overall picture of developments in taste and movements of art. See Gerald Reitlinger, The Economics of Taste: The Rise and Fall of Picture Prices, 1760–1960 (London: Barrie & Rockliff, 1961); Francis Haskell, Rediscoveries in Art: Some Aspects of Taste, Fashion and Collecting in England and France (London: Phaidon, 1976). Also Ilaria Sgarbozza, Le spalle al settecento: forma, modelli e organizzazione dei musei nella Roma napoleonica, 1809–1814 (Rome: Edizioni Musei Vaticani, 2013), 52–7. Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 50, 53–6, 68–75. Also Anna Maria Spiazzi, ‘Dipinti demaniali di Venezia e del Veneto nella prima metà del secolo XIX: vicende e recuperi’, Bolletino d’arte 68, no. 20 (July–August 1983): 69–122; Valter Curzi, Bene culturale e pubblica utilità: politiche di tutela a Roma tra ancien régime e restaurazione, 2nd edn (Rome: Minerva, 2016). The letters are part of the Camuccini archive in Cantalupo in Sabina, Italy. Some of them have been published: Luca Verdone, Vincenzo Camuccini: pittore neoclassico (Rome: Edilazio, 2005), 87–96. See also Chapter 2 by Ludovico Puddu in this volume. On Buchanan, see Hugh Brigstocke, William Buchanan and the 19th Century Art Trade: 100 Letters to His Agents in London and Italy (London: Paul Mellon Centre for British Art, 1982); Hugh Brigstocke, The Journals and Accounts of James Irvine in Italy, 1802–1806: Art Dealing and Speculation for William Buchanan, Arthur Champernowne and Alexander Gordon (London: Walpole Society, 2012). On John Smith, see Charles Sebag-Montefiore and Julia Armstrong-Totten, A Dynasty of Dealers: John Smith and Successors, 1801–1924 (London: Roxburghe Club, 2013).

50 6 7

8

9

10 11

12

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14 15

16

17 18

19

Old Masters Worldwide See, for example, Fabio Isman, ‘Il “sacco” del patrimonio pubblico’ [An interview with Giovanna Nepi Sciré], VeneziAltrove 4 (2005): 78–99, here 82–6. Many examples of valuable works of art that were exported with mistaken attributions are documented for the collection of Edward Solly in Berlin: Robert Skwirblies, ‘ “Ein Nationalgut, auf das jeder Einwohner stolz sein dürfte”: Die Sammlung Solly als Grundlage der Berliner Gemäldegalerie’, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, n.s. 51 (2009): 86; Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 545–79. For the presumed ‘charlatanism’ of Italian sellers, see the example of the ‘Brocca Raphael’, ibid., 652; Enrica Yvonne Dilk, ‘Für Raffael und Preußen: Carl Friedrich von Rumohrs winterliche Mission in Mailand (1829)’, in Italien in Preußen – Preußen in Italien, ed. Max Kunze (Stendal: Winckelmann-Gesellschaft, 2006), 153–64. Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 415–18; Andrea Emiliani, Leggi, bandi e provvedimenti per la tutela dei beni artistici e culturali negli antichi stati italiani, 1571–1860, 3rd edn (Florence: Polistampa, 2015), xiii–xvi. The Getty Provenance Index® Databases, Sales Catalogs online: http://piprod.getty.edu/ starweb/pi/servlet.starweb (accessed 30 October 2017), 1780–1800: c. 24,000; 1800–15: over 32,000, parameters: any Italian painter, any transaction type, any place of sale. Ibid. Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 52–6, 68–72; Costanza Costanzi, ‘Le vie di fuga: prinicipali percorsi nelle dispersioni delle opere d’arte dalle Marche’, in Le Marche disperse: repertorio di opera d’arte dalle Marche al mondo, ed. Costanza Costanzi (Milan: Silvana, 2005), 21–36. For example, most of the paintings in public possession in Venice were considered of minor importance and destined for sale or destruction: Archivio di Stato di Venezia (ASV), Direzione generale del Demanio di Venezia, vol. 72, Report of the ‘economo’ A. Pasquali, 9 August 1817. See the profile of the Solly Collection in Berlin: Skwirblies, ‘ “Ein Nationalgut” ’, 92–3, 98–9; Cristina Galassi, ‘Fortuna e sfortuna del patrimonio pittorico umbro del sei e settecento tra l’età napoleonica e la fine dell’ottocento’, in Fare e disfare: studi sulla dispersione delle opere d’arte in Italia tra XVI e XIX secolo, ed. Loredana Lorizzo (Rome: Campisano, 2011), 139–62. Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 73. See, for example, Archivio di Stato di Roma (ASR), Camerale II, Antichità e Belle Arti, vol. 10, fasc. 253, Promemoria of Carlo Fea concerning taxes on Old Master paintings and antiquities due for export, 10 July 1821. Emiliani, Leggi, bandi e provvedimenti, 26–7, 137–8. Archivio Storico delle Gallerie Fiorentine (ASGF), vol. 41 (1817), fasc. 1–2: Circular letter (printed), ban on exporting any fine art object without the permission of the Tuscan Government, 4 January 1817. Emiliani, Leggi, bandi e provvedimenti, 77–80; Claudia Zaccagnini, ed., Bartolomeo Pacca, 1756–1844: ruolo pubblico e privato di un cardinale di Santa Romana Chiesa (Velletri: Blitri, 2001). ASGF, 47 (1823), fasc. 2: Circular letter to the restorers of the Florentine Academy, 10 January 1823. Archivio Storico dell’Accademia di Brera, Milan (ASBr), fondo Carpi E VI 5: Academy President Luigi Castiglioni to the provincial government, 5 September 1828. The submission was rejected on 28 April 1829 by Vice President Febo D’Adda. ASR, Camerlengato I, tit. IV, vol. 41, fasc. 165, interpellazione (of the papal legate in Bologna) al Camerlengo sulla licenza d’estrazione di pitture, 15 October 1820–24

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20

21

22

23

24 25 26

27 28 29

30

31

51

February 1821. See Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 350–4, 567–74; Gian Piero Cammarota, Le origini della Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna: una raccolta di fonti, II (Bologna: Minerva, 2004), 37–47. Hélène Sécherre, ‘Le marché des tableaux italiens à Paris sous la Restauration, 1815–1830: collectionneurs, marchands, spéculateurs’, in Collections et marché de l’art en France, 1789–1848, ed. Monica Preti-Hamard and Philippe Sénéchal (Rennes: Presses Universitaires, 2005), 163–85. Also Giandomenico Romanelli, ‘Das 19. Jahrhundert – Von Correr zu Fortuny’, in Venezia! Kunst aus venezianischen Palästen: Sammlungsgeschichte Venedigs vom 13. bis 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje-Cantz, 2002), 331; Spiazzi, ‘Dipinti demaniali’, 73. Roberta Panzanelli and Monica Preti-Hamard, eds, The Circulation of Works of Art in the Revolutionary Era, 1789–1848 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires, 2007). For Venice in particular, see Isabella Cecchini, ‘Attorno al mercato, 1700–1815’, in Il collezionismo d’arte a Venezia, ed. Linda Borean and Stefania Mason, III (Venice: Marsilio, 2009), 166–7. Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 45–68. Also Daniela Camurri, ‘Nuove istituzioni museali e tutela delle opere d’arte dalla repubblica cisalpine al regno d’Italia: l’opera della commissione di belle arti nel dipartimento del regno’, in Armi e nazione: dalla repubblica cisalpina al regno d’Italia, 1797–1814, ed. Maria Canella (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2009). Burton B. Fredericksen, ‘Survey of the French Art Market between 1789 and 1820’, in Collections et marché de l’art en France, ed. Preti-Hamard and Sénéchal, 21; Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 114–21. Ibid., 95–104; A. Wendt, ‘Kunstnachrichten aus Leipzig‘, Kunstblatt 102, 22 December 1828: 405–7, here 407. Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 106, 293, 341–5. Stefan Körner, Nikolaus II. Esterházy, 1765–1833, und die Kunst: Biografie eines manischen Sammlers (Wien, Köln and Weimar: Böhlau, 2013), 181–3, 302–7; Cornelia Fanslau, ‘“Wohl dem der’s sehen kann!” Private Amsterdam Art Collections, 1770–1860’, in Luxury in the Low Countries: Miscellaneous Reflections on Netherlandish Material Culture, 1500 to the Present, ed. Rengenier C. Rittersma (Brussels: Faro, 2010), 159–92. Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 101–2, 355; see export license for Giovanni Riccardi ‘from Hamburg’, ASGF, vol. 48, 26 February 1824. See below, the examples of Féréol Bonnemaison in Paris, the Sanquirico Gallery in Venice and Gaspare Weiß’s art shop in Berlin. See Celina Fox, ‘James Christie: Die Bedeutung von Standort, Werbung und Persönlichkeit’, in Helden der Kunstauktion, ed. Dirk Boll (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2014), 26–9. Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, passim. Also Valter Curzi, ‘Tutela e storiografia artistica: salvaguardia e conservazione dei primitivi nello Stato Pontifici dopo la Restaurazione’, in Giuseppe Vernazza e la fortuna dei primitivi, ed. Giovanni Romano (Alba: Fondazione Ferrero, 2007), 147–65. Oliver Bonfait, Philippe Costamagna and Monica Preti-Hamard, eds, Le goût pour la peinture italienne autour de 1800: prédécesseurs, modèles et concurrents du Cardinal Fesch. Actes du colloque (Ajaccio: Musée Fesch, 2006); Bénédicte Savoy, Kunstraub: Napoleons Konfiszierungen in Deutschland und die europäischen Folgen (Wien, Köln and Weimar: Böhlau, 2011), I, 345–57.

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32 Pierre Rosenberg, ed., Dominique-Vivant Denon: L’œil de Napoléon (Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1999), 168–9; Christoph M. Vogtherr, Das königliche Museum zu Berlin: Planungen und Konzeption des ersten Berliner Kunstmuseums (Berlin: Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, Beiheft, 1997), 74–95. 33 Édouard Pommier, ‘Die Revolution in Frankreich und das Schicksal der antiken Kunstwerke’, in Quatremère de Quincy: Ueber den nachtheiligen Einfluß der Versetzung der Monumente aus Italien auf Künste und Wissenschaften, 1796, ed. Édouard Pommier (Stendal: Winckelmann-Gesellschaft, 1998), 7–33; Monica Preti-Hamard, ‘L’exposition des “écoles primitives” au Louvre’, in Dominique-Vivant Denon, ed. Rosenberg, 226–53. 34 Ibid.; Isabelle Leroy-Jay Lemaistre, ‘Le musée du Louvre’, in Napoléon et le Louvre, ed. Sylvain Laveissière (Paris: Fayard, 2004), 194–6. 35 Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 80–7, 203–16; Andrea Meyer, Kristina KratzKessemeier and Bénédicte Savoy, eds, Museumsgeschichte: Kommentierte Quellentexte, 1750–1950 (Berlin: Reimer, 2010), 79–84; Sgarbozza, Le Spalle al Settecento, 245–8; María Luisa Gil Meana, ed., La pinacoteca del Escorial: Itinerarios y visitudes (Madrid: San Lorenzo del Escorial, 2011), 55–74. 36 Savoy, Kunstraub, 407–9. For Italy, as a striking example, see the list of lost paintings, manuscripts, etc. in the provinces of Lombardy, compiled to claim their restitution: ASBr Fondo Carpi E VI 4, Academy secretary Ignazio Fumagalli to the representative of the Austrian government in Milan, Domenico de Rosetti, draft, n. d. [1822]. 37 Gabriele Bickendorf, ‘Visualität und Narrativität: Methodische Spannungen in Carl Friedrich von Rumohrs Italienischen Forschungen’, in Geschichte und Ästhetik: Festschrift für Werner Busch zum 60. Geburtstag, eds Margit Kern, Thomas Kirchner and Hubertus Kohle (Berlin and Munich: DKV, 2004), 362–75; Donata Levi, ‘La professionalizzazione della figura dell’esperto in Inghilterra ed in Francia’, in Collections et marché, ed. Preti-Hamard and Sénéchal, 57–72. 38 Édouard Pommier, ‘Réflexions sur le problème des restitutions d’œuvres d’art en 1814–1815’, in Dominique-Vivant Denon, ed. Pierre Rosenberg, 257. 39 Kratz-Kessemeier, Meyer and Savoy, eds, Museumsgeschichte, 26–35; Reitlinger, Economics of Taste, I, 120–3. 40 Dirk Heisig, ed., Ent-Sammeln: Neue Wege in der Sammlungspolitik von Museen (Aurich: Ostfriesische Landschaftliche Verlags- und Vertriebsgesellschaft, 2007). 41 Inge Reist, ‘The Fate of the Palace Royal Collection, 1791–1800’, in The Circulation of Works of Art, ed. Panzanelli and Preti-Hamard, 27–44. 42 Silvia Danesi Squarzina, ed., Caravaggio in Preußen: Die Sammlung Giustiniani und die Berliner Gemäldegalerie (Milan: Electa, 2001). 43 Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 190. 44 Monica Preti-Hamard, Ferdinando Marescalchi, 1754–1816: Un collezionista italiano nella Parigi napoleonica (Bologna: Minerva, 2005). 45 Philippe Costamagna, ‘Donnés historiques de la collection Fesch’, in Le goût, ed. Bonfait, Costamagna and Preti-Hamard, 21–33. 46 Skwirblies, ‘Ein Nationalgut’, 98–9, and Altitalienische Malerei, 287–302. 47 Roberta Bartoli, ‘Nuove considerazioni sulla raccolta di Lucien Bonaparte’, in Le goût, ed. Bonfait, Costamagna and Preti-Hamard, 105–12. 48 Michał Mencfel, Atanazy Raczyński, 1788–1874: biografia (Poznań: University Press, 2016), 384–450. 49 Körner, Nikolaus II. Esterházy, 259–339. 50 Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 496.

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51 The collection, although offered for sale (ibid., 105), was in Paris, where it was sold in 1851. Nicolas Hatot, s.v. ‘Artaud de Montor, Jean-Alexis-François’, in Dictionnaire critique des historiens de l’art, ed. Philippe Sénéchal and Claire Barbillon (Paris: Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA), n.d.), online at: https://www.inha.fr/fr/ressources/ publications/publications-numeriques/dictionnaire-critique-des-historiens-de-l-art/ artaud-de-montor-jean-alexis-francois.html (accessed 25 May 2020). 52 Giandomenico Romanelli, ‘ “Vista cadere la patria . . .”: Teodoro Correr tra “Pietas” civile e collezionismo erudito’, Bollettino dei Civici Musei Veneziani d’arte e di storia 30 (1986): 13–28. 53 Cecchini, ‘Attorno al mercato, 1700–1815’, 161–3. 54 Burton B. Fredericksen and Benjamin Peronnet, eds, Répertoire des tableaux vendus en France au XIXe siècle, I (Los Angeles, CA: Getty, 1998), 50. 55 Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 216–18; Sandrine Gachenot, ‘Ferréol Bonnemaison: peintre, marchand, restaurateur de tableaux et directeur des restaurations au Musée royal de 1816 à 1826’, Bulletin de la Société de l‘Histoire de l‘Art Français (2007): 276–81. 56 [Gaspare Weiß], Beschreibendes Verzeichniss der Gemälde des Museums: Volume III (Berlin: Weiß, 1816). 57 Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 400–2; their exportation licences in Milan: ASBr, Fondo Carpi, E VI 2 (1816–28). 58 Marilyn Perry, ‘Antonio Sanquirico, art merchant of Venice’, Labyrinthos 1–2 (1982): 67–111, here 77–81. 59 Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 98, 269, 495. 60 Christoph Frank, ‘Zu den Anfängen des etablierten europäischen Graphikhandels: Das Wiener Unternehmen Artaria & Comp. (gegr. 1768/70)’, in The European Print and Cultural Transfer in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, ed. Philippe Kaenel and Rolf Reichardt (Hildesheim, Zürich and New York: Olms, 2007), 609–45; Edith Luther, Johann Friedrich Frauenholz, 1758–1822: Kunsthändler und Verleger in Nürnberg (Nuremberg: Stadtarchiv, 1988); Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 96, 286, 383, 389, 492, 501–2. 61 Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 142–3, 562–6. 62 Federica Giacomini, Per reale vantaggio delle arti e della storia: Vincenzo Camuccini e il restauro dei dipinti a Roma nella prima metà dell‘ottocento (Roma: Quasar, 2007), 115–36; Sgarbozza, Le spalle al settecento, 245–6. 63 Cammarota, Le origini della Pinacoteca Nazionale, 26–8; Donata Levi, ‘Carlo Lasinio: Curator, Collector and Dealer’, The Burlington Magazine 135 (1993): 133–48. 64 Giacomini, Per reale vantaggio, 51–114 (Camuccini); Gachenot, ‘Ferréol Bonnemaison’, 281–90 (Bonnemaison); Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 393–4, 414–5 (Giuseppe Molteni, Giuseppe Gallo de’ Lorenzi). 65 Notizen über Kunst und Künstler zu Basel, ed. Kunst-Verein Basel (Basel: Seul & Mast, 1841), 85–6; H. Albert Steiger, ‘Marquard Wocher, 1760–1830’, Basler Jahrbuch (1943): 31; Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 106, 521. 66 For example, the ‘negoziante’ Brogi, who bought paintings from the Florentine Academy; Marziale Reghellini; or Giuseppe Riccardi, who exported pictures to Germany: Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 389–93, 580–2. 67 Ibid., 26, 409–15; Anne-Marie Eze, ‘Abbé Celotti and the Provenance of Antonello da Messina’s The condottiere and Antonio de Solario’s Virgin and Child with St John’, The Burlington Magazine 151 (2009): 673–7. 68 Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 44–5, 77, 228, 405–9; Giacomini, Per reale vantaggio, 97–108.

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69 Claudia Brink, ‘Der Name des Künstlers: Ein Raffael für Dresden’, in Raffael, Die Sixtinische Madonna: Geschichte und Mythos eines Meisterwerks, ed. Claudia Brink and Andreas Henning (Munich and Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2005). 70 Linda Borean, ‘Venezia e l’Inghilterra: artisti, collezionisti e mercato dell’arte, 1750– 1800’, in Il collezionismo d’arte a Venezia, ed. Borean and Mason, III, 108. 71 Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 241–4, 349–54. 72 Ibid., 405–6; Cornelia Syre, ‘ “Wirken Sie, was Sie vermögen!” Die Erwerbungen italienischer Gemälde in der Korrespondenz mit den Kunstagenten’, in ‘Ihm, welcher der Andacht Tempel baut . . .’: Ludwig I. und die Alte Pinakothek, ed. Konrad Renger (Munich: Lipp, 1986), 41–55. 73 Skwirblies, Altitalienische Malerei, 545–79. 74 Ibid., 512.

2

Old Masters from Rome to London: Alexander Day and Pietro Camuccini Pier Ludovico Puddu

The market for Old Master paintings in Italy during the Napoleonic Wars witnessed a dramatic fall in prices. In Rome, the decline was particularly sharp in comparison with the rest of Europe, and dealers who traded at an international level were able to take advantage of the situation.1 Meanwhile, for the first time in the art market in Rome, many authentic Old Master paintings became available from churches as well as from the private collections of the city’s ancient noble families.2 Among art dealers active in the city, Alexander Day (1751–1841) and Pietro Camuccini (1760–1833) were of prime importance. They handled, exported and occasionally smuggled out of the country, a large number of Old Master paintings, thus actively contributing to the increased international circulation of pictures during this period. Although the names of Day and Camuccini are often mentioned en passant in the literature concerning the early-nineteenth-century art market, there is still no systematic investigation of their crucial contribution to the transnational trade in Old Masters and the formation of European museums.3 The discovery of hitherto unknown documents, including an account book, provides vital evidence concerning the business partnership between this pair of dealers from 1794 to 1801, and enables scholars to investigate in more detail than was previously possible the mechanisms of their acquisition, export and sale of works from important Roman collections.4 As a case study to elucidate this context of rapid flux and sudden transformation, this chapter will explore a sale of Italian Old Master paintings that Day and Camuccini organized in London in 1801, focusing in particular on the export methods connected with it. A brief biographical introduction to the two art dealers will act as a preface.

Dealing in Art in a Market in Flux Little is known about Alexander Day.5 He was born in Somerset in England and, after training with the English portrait painter Ozias Humphry, specialized as a copyist and miniaturist. In 1774, Day moved to Rome, where he lived for forty years. Like many of his compatriots who moved to Rome in the second half of the eighteenth century, he 55

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abandoned his career as an artist to work mainly as an art dealer.6 He moved back to England only after Napoleon’s defeat in 1815.7 Day can be linked with a wide circle of artists and dealers who participated in the art market in Rome of the time, and who took advantage of the financial difficulties experienced by many local aristocrats.8 Being well connected socially, Day was also able to work for several important Roman aristocrats, buying from them quantities of high-quality paintings relatively cheaply. Day then sold these on, at vast profit, to his British compatriots passing through Rome on their Grand Tours. It was due to these wide-reaching social connections that Day was able to establish himself as one of the most important and reliable dealers of firstrate paintings.9 The pictures he handled, in line with prevailing tastes of the time, were principally Grand Manner paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Day’s commercial debut, however, had been in the trade of copies, engravings and antique marbles; he specialized in dealing in more lucrative Old Masters only later on. In the pursuit of buying and selling art, Day became highly mobile. He travelled to other Italian cities and visited England on at least one occasion. In addition, as demonstrated by export licences in his name at Rome’s Archivio di Stato, he organized the export of several paintings from Italy.10 His most profitable business transactions, however, took place in partnership with Pietro Camuccini, in the 1790s and 1800s. In all likelihood, Pietro Camuccini (Fig. 2.1) – just as is believed about his younger brother, the well-known painter Vincenzo Camuccini (1771–1844) – was a pupil of the

Fig. 2.1 Pietro Camuccini, Self-Portrait, before 1790. Oil on canvas, dimensions unknown. Formerly Cantalupo in Sabina, Camuccini Collection.

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Viterbese painter Domenico Corvi. It is probable that Corvi also taught Camuccini techniques of painting restoration that came into their own during his long career as an art dealer.11 As noted in the case of Day, the elder Camuccini abandoned his artistic career to enter the art market, initially benefitting from his skills as a conservator, which allowed him to restore those paintings that came his way12 – a painting in good condition made its resale easier and added to its commercial value.13 Camuccini first worked as a picture restorer for the British community in Rome, as early as the 1780s, and among his clients were certain art dealers, including Thomas and Henry Hope and Thomas Jenkins as well as Alexander Day.14 The encounter with Day was crucial for Camuccini’s future career as an art dealer and collector. After an initial period of occasional partnership, the two men started a profitable and long-lasting commercial joint venture from 1794. Trading together, Day and Camuccini not only increased their business but also were able to acquire several paintings of fine quality that they would not have been able to afford alone.15 The two dealers kept in touch after their partnership dissolved around 1806, even after Day moved back permanently to England, around 1815. Thereafter, Camuccini continued to work as an art restorer and dealer for another two decades, and also started to build up his own private collection of Old Master paintings. Information about the Day–Camuccini partnership utilized in this chapter is derived from Camuccini’s recently discovered personal archive. This consists principally of the account book mentioned above, several receipts of payment for paintings dated between 1793 and 1823, as well as a few inventories of the same date.16 The account book is particularly useful in tracing the commercial strategies utilized by the two-dealer partnership and in identifying their suppliers and clients, and the sums of money that exchanged hands.17 The receipts of payment, often signed off by the bestknown Roman collectors, are equally crucial in the search to identify paintings and their former provenances, as well as to confirm prices paid.18 These records show that during the first few years of collaboration, the partners completed several minor deals, which allowed them to hone their negotiating skills and commercial strategies, to penetrate the market and to gather the capital needed to buy more important pictures.19 Their most important British client during this period was Frederick Augustus Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol (1730–1803), for whom Day had become art agent, succeeding Jacob More.20 From 1797 until 1799, Day and Camuccini acquired several high-quality works of art, mostly from important Roman collections, not least the well-known paintings they then included in a sale in London in 1801, as well as other works they sold and exported later. For instance, Mantegna’s Adoration of the Shepherds (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Fig. 2.2)21 and Raphael’s Garvagh Madonna (National Gallery, London)22 were included in the London sale, whereas Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne (National Gallery, London)23 and Bellini’s Feast of the Gods (National Gallery of Art, Washington)24 were not part of it. All these paintings were acquired from the Aldobrandini Collection, by then owned by the Borghese heirs.25 In addition to significant deals brokered with important private Roman collectors, Day and Camuccini purchased several important pictures recently removed from churches in the city, such as Guercino’s Glory of Saint Crysogono from the Church of San Crisogono (Lancaster House, London) and Annibale Carracci’s Saint Gregory at Prayer from the Church of San Gregorio (destroyed during the Second

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Fig. 2.2 Andrea Mantegna, Adoration of the Shepherds, shortly after 1450. Tempera on canvas, transferred from wood, 40 × 55.6 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

World War).26 These two paintings were both smuggled into London, but only the latter was part of the sale in 1801. According to the account book and, in particular, to an autograph note found inside it, dated 2 October 1799, just two days after the end of the two-year Roman Republic, Day was in possession of more than 150 paintings (owned in partnership with Camuccini),27 while Camuccini owned another collection, although the number of pictures is not specified.28 Considering that dealers working alone were not normally able to obtain so many high-quality works of art, it is the fact that Day and Camuccini worked in partnership and brought dealing skills combined with substantial capital to bear that guaranteed them their success. Despite operating in a fragile political context, in which owners were ‘forced’ to sell works in their possession, the deals noted in the account book appear to have been above board. Yet, as this chapter will demonstrate, Day and Camuccini occasionally employed illicit strategies to help sell on those legally acquired paintings.

Italian Masterpieces on the London Art Market Day and Camuccini selected works of art for export to and sale in England, with the aim of generating high profits through the London art market. Both dealers were well aware of the difference between the cost of acquiring a masterpiece in Rome and its potential sale price on the international art market. They maximized their profit

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margins by opting for a strategy that enabled them to bypass mediators and address eligible collectors directly. Additionally, they took care of all procedures connected with the Italian export process themselves. By such means, during 1800 alone, they managed to smuggle out of the Papal States at least thirty-six important paintings – works attributed to Mantegna, Leonardo, Raphael, Giorgione, Titian, the Carracci, Guido Reni, Domenichino and other Old Masters – all from well-known Roman collections such as those of the Aldobrandini, Borghese and Colonna families.29 In order to facilitate their sale, and to ignite competition between potential buyers, the partners travelled to London and exhibited the paintings at the London gallery, at 20 Lower Brook Street, of the painter Henry Tresham (1751–1814).30 The exhibition opened to the public in the first days of February 1801. Accurate information about the sale that took place later in 1801 is available through the Getty Provenance Index® databases, edited by Burton Fredericksen, on the basis of two sale catalogues he found.31 Fredericksen notes that both the diarist Joseph Farington and the dealer William Buchanan discussed this exhibition, noting that Day was the owner of the paintings.32 Yet, both Farington and Buchanan omitted to mention Camuccini, who, in fact, played an essential role in the episode. This omission has led some later scholars to state, incorrectly, that Day was the sole owner of the paintings.33 In fact, according to records of 1798–9, and to a few letters that Camuccini sent from London in October 1800, it emerges that he was not only actively involved in the process of exporting the paintings from Italy for the 1801 London sale, but was also the co-owner of many, if not all of them.34 Indeed, several of those paintings are listed in the note of 1799, in which it is stated that the paintings in possession of Day were actually co-owned by him and Camuccini. These pictures were certainly important; for instance, there was a ‘Quadretto di Raffaelle d’Aldobrandini, la Madonna il Bambino e S. Gio’ Tavola’, i.e. the Garvagh Madonna by Raphael, already mentioned, and a ‘Domenichino, S. Girolamo e Cor[nice]’, i.e. The Vision of Saint Jerome by Domenichino (National Gallery, London, and Figs 2.3 and 2.4).35 Furthermore, it has been possible to verify the involvement of Giovanni Torlonia – a wealthy banker who had previously been a business partner with Day and Camuccini – in direct connection with three of the most expensive paintings then displayed at Lower Brook Street.36 Two of these pictures were supposedly by Titian, one representing The Rape of Ganymede (now attributed to Damiano Mazza; National Gallery, London) and the other Venus and Adonis (now attributed to the workshop of Titian; National Gallery, London) both coming from the Colonna Collection, and both sold to the financier John Julius Angerstein (1735–1823) and among the thirty-eight paintings which Lord Liverpool’s government purchased from Angerstein’s executors to form the nucleus of the new national collection, which opened to the public in 1824.37 The third was the Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Raphael (National Gallery, London)38 from the Borghese Collection. In the note of 1799, these pictures are reported as being owned in half share: 50 per cent by Camuccini and Day together, and the remaining 50 per cent by Torlonia.39 Other paintings in the 1801 exhibition which had a Colonna Collection provenance are not mentioned in this note, yet they are still linkable to acquisitions made by Camuccini through three receipts of payment issued by Prince Filippo Colonna in 1798.40 One of these receipts concerns ‘un Quadro del Pusino . . .

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Fig. 2.3 Raphael, The Madonna and Child with the Infant Baptist (The Garvagh Madonna, also known as The Aldobrandini Madonna), c. 1509–10. Oil on wood, 38.9 × 32.9 cm. The National Gallery, London. Photograph © Scala Firenze, 2018/The National Gallery, London.

Fig. 2.4 Domenichino, The Vision of Saint Jerome, before 1603. Oil on canvas, 51.1 × 39.8 cm. The National Gallery, London. Photograph © Scala Firenze, 2018/The National Gallery, London.

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Fig. 2.5 Annibale Carracci, Christ Appearing to Saint Peter on the Appian Way (Domine, Quo Vadis?), 1601–2. Oil on wood, 77.4 × 56.3 cm. The National Gallery, London. Photograph © Scala Firenze, 2018/The National Gallery, London.

rappresentanti le figure il Sagrificio d’Isac’,41 which matches with Gaspard Dughet’s Landscape with Abraham and Isaac (National Gallery, London),42 and which was certainly co-owned by the two dealers. Three further paintings, all now at the National Gallery, London, must be added to the six paintings mentioned above: Annibale Carracci’s Christ Appearing to Saint Peter on the Appian Way (Fig. 2.5); Bernardino Luini’s Christ among the Doctors, which was then supposed to be a Leonardo masterpiece; and The Conversion of Saint Paul, bought as by Garofalo (now Ferrarese School).43 Indeed, the National Gallery now owns a quarter of the paintings that formed part of the sale organized by Day and Camuccini in 1801,44 paintings which were absolutely fundamental to the development of the museum’s collection and which contributed significantly to its growing prestige.45 These acquisitions illustrate the quality of the paintings exported by Camuccini and Day and demonstrate the role that they played in the international circulation of Old Master paintings as well as indirectly – to the growth of the National Gallery’s Old Master collection. The sale of 1801, as noted by William Buchanan, was organized not as a public auction but as a sale ‘by private contract’.46 The exhibition of pictures lasted for several months, and was seen by a large number of visitors, including several buyers, who purchased pictures according to varying terms and conditions. Given this and the fact

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that a few paintings remained unsold for more than a decade, the sale clearly comprised a series of transactions rather than a single one.47 Many of the Old Masters in the 1801 private contract sale in London reached impressive prices. According to Buchanan, three of the paintings from the Colonna Collection – Dughet’s Landscape and the two supposed Titians – were purchased by Angerstein for a total of 6,000 guineas (£6,300).48 Three other masterpieces – Carracci’s Christ Appearing to Saint Peter on the Appian Way, Raphael’s Saint Catherine and Luini’s Christ among the Doctors – were appraised at £2,100, £2,500 and £3,150, respectively, and were acquired by Lord Northwick (1770–1859), presumably for these sums.49 According to information gleaned from the appraisals and prices paid, it is clear that Day and Camuccini were able to accrue impressive capital through their extended sale in the London art market, although they could never have owned such an amount of fine-quality paintings without their association with bankers or entrepreneurs, such as Torlonia. Buchanan had already stressed the quality of this exhibition, stating that it was: ‘one of the most important collections which was introduced into this country so recently after the French invasion of Italy [in 1796] had thrown open the doors of the palaces to the acquisition of those high works of art, which were previous to that time absolutely unattainable’.50 This sale undoubtedly showcased one of the greatest groups of paintings ever imported from Italy, especially in terms of the quality and rarity of the works on view. It is highly probable that Day and Camuccini smuggled the paintings from Italy, taking advantage of the vacancy in the Papacy and the fragile political situation between the fall of the Roman Republic on 30 September 1799 and the reinstatement of the Pope on 14 March 1800.51 At any rate, they managed to get the pictures through the Papal States’ customs, then provisionally run by the Neapolitan Government,52 without any questions being raised. The whole operation, seemingly, was carried out in secrecy and did not follow legal procedures. For one thing, according to the laws regulating the export of works of art in force at the time, Camuccini and Day should have submitted a request for an export licence but there is no evidence of such a document at Rome’s Archivio di Stato. Interestingly, the then Commissioner for Antiquities, Carlo Fea, did, in fact, contact the papal Camerlengo (the office in charge of administering the property and revenues of the Holy See) in 1805 about Camuccini and Day’s smuggling of these ‘celebrated masterpieces’, stating that there were witnesses ready to confirm this accusation and that Camuccini himself had not denied it.53 In order to disguise the quality of the paintings to be exported, Fea noted that they had been ‘transfigured’ – ‘onde trasfigurarlo’ to use Fea’s words. In fact, Camuccini had had them covered with reversible repainting so that it would look as if he and Day were transporting low-quality goods and thus were due to pay only insubstantial duties to do so.54 That they successfully passed through the English customs is confirmed by Camuccini in a letter to his brother, in which he proudly announced that he and Day had managed to get the paintings through the English border checks, paying only paltry import duty on them.55 Camuccini also stated that after the paintings had arrived in the British capital, he had removed the reversible repainting, a statement that confirms Fea’s report regarding the physical interventions the pictures had undergone.56 Interestingly, he mentioned the damage suffered by a few paintings on account of seawater having seeped into their packing cases.57 Thus, when Raphael’s Saint Catherine

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was recently restored, traces of seawater were found, which suggests the reliability of Camuccini’s account.58 Despite Fea’s request to the Papal Camerlengo that the two dealers be punished for their illicit dealing practices, there is no evidence of penalties ever having been imposed on either one of them.

Conclusion The particular historical context in which Day and Camuccini found themselves in the years immediately preceding and following the French invasion of Italy contributed to the increased availability of works of art. However, only those dealers who were well placed in the art market and with a large amount of capital at their disposal could take real advantage of the situation, something which Day and Camuccini exploited further by creating a business alliance. It should also be remarked that Camuccini, Day and their colleagues got away with employing their illicit strategies because they were operating in a period of political turmoil, when the government was not in full control. Following the introduction in 1802 of Pius VII’s Chirograph – a law for the protection of the fine arts that also restricted the exportation of all kind of artistic goods – the Roman market suffered a decline, with the inevitable consequence that certain dealers likened Fea to an inquisitor or monster.59 After the 1801 London sale, both Day and Camuccini, while they kept trading in Old Masters and occasionally in modern pictures, reverted to ‘above board’ strategies. By 1806, they had divided the unsold pictures they still co-owned between themselves and thereafter they continued their business independently. In the case of Camuccini, the split coincided with the beginning of his activity as a collector, which ran in parallel with his ongoing work as a dealer, whereas Day went on, independently, to conduct other important sales on the London art market. Dealers such as Day and Camuccini, as this chapter has demonstrated, were willing to trade by whatever method was necessary, whether legal or illicit, to bring works of art from Italy to other selling points. Thanks to the discovery of their personal correspondence and trade accounts, it has been possible to investigate the business model they employed. It is important to highlight this point because many of the strategies employed by Day and Camuccini in the trade of Old Master paintings were widely used by their colleagues in years to come. For instance, a letter written in 1808 by Maler Müller records some of the same strategies still in use in Rome at that time.60 By means of these precious fragments of evidence, it is possible to widen understanding about the art market in Rome at the turn of the nineteenth century, and to see clearly that it was boosted by much evasive manoeuvring, not least in relation to the trade in Old Master paintings.

Notes 1

See Giovanni Gherardo De Rossi’s letters of 1803, cited in Maria Cecilia Mazzi, ed., Una miniera per l’Europa (Rome: Istituto Nazionale di Studi Romani, 2008), 72; Rosella Carloni, ‘Per una ricostruzione della collezione dei dipinti di Luciano: acquisti, vendite e qualche nota sul mercato antiquario romano del primo Ottocento’, in Luciano

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3

4

5

6

7

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Old Masters Worldwide Bonaparte: le sue collezioni d’arte, le sue residenze a Roma, nel Lazio, in Italia, 1804– 1840, ed. Marina Natoli (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1995), 10. Also Gerald Reitlinger, The Economics of Taste: The Rise and Fall of Picture Prices, 1760– 1960, I (London: Barrie & Rockliff, 1961), 41. William Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting: With a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution (London: Ackermann, 1824). Among the various studies on the art market of this period (concerning the circulation of works, taste, commercial strategies, etc.), see Francis Haskell, Rediscoveries in Art: Some Aspects of Taste, Fashion and Collecting in England and France (London: Phaidon, 1976); Philippe Costamagna, Oliver Bonfait and Monica Preti-Hamard, eds, Le goût pour la peinture italienne autour de 1800: prédécesseurs, modèles et concurrents du Cardinal Fesch. Actes du colloque (Ajaccio: Musee Fesch, 2006); Roberta Panzanelli and Monica Preti-Hamard, eds, The Circulation of Works of Art in the Revolutionary Era, 1789–1848 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires, 2007); Paolo Coen, Il mercato dei quadri a Roma nel diciottesimo secolo: la domanda, l’offerta e la circolazione delle opere in un grande centro artistico europeo (Florence: Olschki, 2010). Also Chapter 1 by Robert Skwirblies in this volume. Their careers as art dealers – and their partnership – has been investigated in my PhD thesis: Pier Ludovico Puddu, ‘Pietro Camuccini, 1760–1833: mercato e collezionismo di dipinti nella Roma napoleonica e della Restaurazione’ (PhD dissertation, Università Sapienza, Rome, 2018), 47–149. The results of the thesis have been partially published in Pier Ludovico Puddu, Pietro Camuccini e Alexander Day artisti e mercanti di quadri nella Roma di fine settecento: strategie e dinamiche commerciali (Rome: De Luca Editori d’Arte, 2020). I discovered several unpublished documents in the Archivio Eredi Camuccini di Roma (AECR). This archive must not be mistaken with the better known one in Cantalupo in Sabina, even though it originally formed part of it. Its relocation is connected with the inheritance of Emma Dantoni-Camuccini (1898–1972). A biographical profile of this art dealer has been outlined ad vocem ‘Day, Alexander’, in John Ingamells, ed., A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701–1800 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997). Also Ilaria Bignamini and Clare Hornsby, Digging and Dealing in Eighteenth-Century Rome, I (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), 258–9. In 1779, James Northcote described him as a ‘miniature painter and dealer in paintings’. According to information of 1792, ‘dalla città di Sommerset in Inghilterra, venne a Roma d’aprile 1774 da dove poi fino al presente mai è partito, abbita sotto la cura di S. Andrea delle Fratte e fa il miniatore’. According to Sir William Forbes, who considered Day’s miniatures ‘much inferior in merit to several in London’, Alexander Day was not a skilled artist. See Ingamells, ‘Day, Alexander’, in Dictionary. Bignamini and Hornsby, Digging and Dealing, 258. All that is known about the period following Napoleon’s downfall concerns just a few sales organized by the English dealer. See the Getty Provenance Index® databases, Sales Catalogs, online at: https:// piprod.getty.edu/starweb/pi/servlet.starweb?path=pi/pi.web (accessed 25 May 2020), in particular ‘Br–1347-A (1816)’, ‘Br–4112 (1833, Lugt n. 13347)’, ‘Br–5535 (1843, Lugt n.17037)’, ‘Br–5724 (1845, Lugt n. 17809)’. Among these art dealers were Thomas Jenkins, Gavin Hamilton, Thomas Pye, Robert Fagan, John Udny, William Young Ottley and James Irvine. They all acquired (often from important Roman collections such as those of the Aldobrandini, Altieri, Barberini, Borghese and Colonna families) high-quality works of art which were

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unavailable previously. See Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting; Hugh Brigstocke, William Buchanan and the 19th Century Trade: 100 Letters to His Agents in London and Italy (London: Paul Mellon Centre for for British Art, 1982). Scholars have clarified the variety of the offer present on the market in Rome at the time: the vast majority of paintings for sale were of poor quality and purchasable at low prices, therefore related to a low-end market. However, a smaller proportion of paintings could reach high prices at auction, even hundreds or thousands of scudi, fuelling the top end of the art market. Among the most expensive items were the Old Masters, mainly Italian and Flemish pictures, although the work of leading contemporary artists was also classified among ‘the first class’ of painting (‘prima classe’, ‘prima fascia’ or ‘fascia alta’). See Coen, ll mercato dei quadri a Roma, I, 169–200. Five export licences are preserved at the ASR under the name of Alexander Day, dated: 28 April and 25 October 1797, 21 June and 2 November 1802, and 7 December 1806, respectively. See Christian Omodeo, ‘Le peintre romain Vincenzo Camuccini, 1771–1844’, I (PhD dissertation, Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2011), 106–7; Alessandra Imbellone, ‘L’arte moderna esca da Roma: regesto delle licenze d’esportazione dal 1775 al 1870’, in Roma fuori di Roma: L’esportazione dell’arte moderna da Pio VI all’Unità, 1775–1870, ed. Giovanna Capitelli, Carla Mazzarelli and Stefano Grandesso (Rome: Campisano, 2012), 626–726. For Pietro Camuccini, see Mario Verdone, ‘I Camuccini: alcune notizie biografiche su tre pittori’, Strenna dei Romanisti 40 (1979): 588–604; Isabella Ceccopieri, L’Archivio Camuccini: inventario (Rome: Società alla Biblioteca Vallicelliana, 1990), 125–6; Jaynie Anderson, ‘The Provenance of Bellini’s Feast of the Gods and a New/Old Interpretation’, Studies in the History of Art 45 (1993): 265–85; Lorenzo Finocchi Ghersi, ‘Il moccolo che va avanti, fa lume per due: Pio IX, il marchese Campana e la vendita della collezione Camuccini’, Rivista dell’Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte 57 (s. III, XXV, 2002): 355–79; Luca Verdone, Vincenzo Camuccini: pittore neoclassico (Rome: Edilazio, 2005), 9–12; Federica Giacomini, ‘Per reale vantaggio delle arti e della storia’: Vincenzo Camuccini e il restauro delle arti a Roma nella prima metà dell’ottocento (Rome: Quasar, 2007), 93–115, 161–9; Federica Giacomini, ‘Pietro Camuccini restauratore, tra mercato antiquariale e cultura della tutela’, in Gli uomini e le cose: figure di restauratori e casi di restauro in Italia tra XVIII e XX secolo, ed. Paola D’Alconzo (Naples: Cliopress, 2007), 171–85; Omodeo, ‘Le Peintre Romain’, 103–24; Pier Ludovico Puddu, ‘I disegni Lanciani di Pietro Camuccini: appunti su un artista, mercante e collezionista tra la fine del settecento e l’inizio dell’ottocento’, Studi sul settecento romano 31 (2015): 269–88. Carlo Falconieri, Vita di Vincenzo Camuccini e pochi studi sulla pittura contemporanea (Rome: Stabilimento Tipografico Italiano, 1875), 4–6. Following his father’s death and compelled by the need to earn money, Pietro Camuccini took advantage initially of his connections among the British community in Rome and his skills as an art restorer, before eventually becoming a dealer. For an idea of some of the paintings restored by Camuccini and of their value before and after the restoration, see Giacomini, Per reale vantaggio, 93–115, 161–9. Finocchi Ghersi, ‘Il moccolo che va avanti’, 355. For other information about the partnership between Day and Camuccini, see Orietta Rossi Pinelli, ‘Carlo Fea e il chirografo del 1802: cronaca, giudiziaria e non, delle prime battaglie per la tutela delle belle arti’, Ricerche di Storia dell’Arte 8 (1978–9): 27–42; Anderson, ‘The Provenance of Bellini’, 265–71; Carloni, ‘Per una ricostruzione’, 8–10,

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21 22 23 24 25

26 27

28

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Old Masters Worldwide Finocchi Ghersi, ‘Il moccolo che va avanti’, 355–7; Giacomini, Per reale vantaggio, 93–115; Giacomini, ‘Pietro Camuccini restauratore’, 171–85; Mazzi, Una miniera per l’Europa, 55–65; Pier Paolo Racioppi, Arte e rivoluzione a Roma: città e patrimonio artistico nella repubblica romana, 1798–99 (Rome: Artemide, 2014), 165–6, 196–8; Puddu, ‘I disegni Lanciani’, 272–5, and ‘Pietro Camuccini’, 47–149. AECR, fasc. 36–7. Puddu, ‘Pietro Camuccini’, 69–136. The best way to acquire new paintings was found to be to purchase them through either the heirs of the Roman aristocracy or cardinals. Among their clients, Lord Bristol, Prince Augustus of Hannover, John Rushout and Giovanni Torlonia, were the most significant. Many receipts of payment for paintings issued by members or delegates of the Aldobrandini, Barberini, Borghese, Colonna, Falconieri, Lante, Orsini-De Cavalieri, Salviati and Valenti-Gonzaga families are kept at AECR, fasc. 37. An autograph note written by Vincenzo Camuccini during the 1830s, in which he refers to his childhood, records the very first connections between his brother Pietro and Day. Omodeo, ‘Le Peintre Romain’, vol. 3, Annexe II. 25, 1534. It seems that, originally, they oriented their trade to the market for copies aimed at Grand Tourists. ‘Bristol, Frederick Augustus Hervey, 4th Earl of ’ (1730–1803), in Ingamells, Dictionary; Stefano Grandesso, ‘Lord Bristol mecenate delle arti e della scultura moderna’, Studi neoclassici 1 (2013): 117–26. In addition, Day was the mediator between the Camuccini brothers and certain British collectors, even providing Vincenzo with his first client, Lord Bristol, who commissioned from him the copy of Raphael’s Deposition and the famous painting The Death of Julius Caesar (Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, Inv.OA6582). Inv.32.130.2. NG744. NG35. Inv.1942.9.1. AECR, fasc. 37 contains the receipt of payment for the two Bacchanals issued by Giovanni Battista Borghese Aldobrandini to Pietro Camuccini in 1797. The Bacchus and Ariadne was bought for 1,500 Roman scudi (about £358) and was sold in 1806 for 9,000 Roman scudi (about £2,148) to James Irvine on behalf of William Buchanan. The Feast of the Gods was bought for 500 Roman scudi (about £119) in 1797 and in 1806 it had an appraisal a little lower than the Bacchus and Ariadne, but remained in the Camuccini Collection until 1855. Giacomini, Per reale vantaggio, 99–101; Omodeo, ‘Le Peintre Romain’, I, 121–4; Racioppi, Arte e Rivoluzione, 153, 164–6, 196–7. AECR, fasc. 36, Account Book between Pietro Camuccini and Alexander Day from 1794 to 1801, 47–57. The long list that follows, drafted from memory by Pietro, could be taken as an inventory of the works of art co-owned, but in Day’s possession. However, the descriptions of the pictures are often fairly vague. See Puddu, Pietro Camuccini e Alexander Day, Appendix A. From an analysis of the receipts and other documents, it is possible to state that Camuccini was also in possession of several co-owned paintings, among which a few were exported to England with Day, including Gaspard Dughet’s Landscape with Abraham and Isaac, for more about which, see the footnotes below. Nine of these thirty-six paintings are now in the collection of the National Gallery, London: Raphael’s Garvagh Madonna (NG744) and Saint Catherine of Alexandria

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32

33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40

41 42 43

44

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(NG168); Bernardino Luini’s Christ among the Doctors (NG18); Damiano Mazza’s The Rape of Ganymede (NG32); Annibale Carracci’s Christ appearing to Saint Peter on the Appian Way (NG9); Domenichino’s The Vision of Saint Jerome (NG85); Gaspard Dughet’s Landscape with Abraham and Isaac (NG31); the Venus and Adonis attributed to the workshop of Titian (NG34); and The Conversion of Saint Paul attributed to the Ferrarese School (NG73). Henry Tresham was primarily a history painter but he was also active as an art dealer. He made several deals with Lord Bristol and was a longtime friend of Alexander Day, with whom he had travelled to Naples in 1779. For further information, see ‘Tresham, Henry’, in Ingamells, Dictionary, 952–3. Burton B. Fredericksen, ed., The Index of Paintings Sold in the British Isles during the Nineteenth Century, I (Oxford: Clio Press, 1988), 3 n. 6. Also the Getty Provenance Index® databases, Sale Catalogs, online at: https://piprod.getty.edu/starweb/pi/servlet. starweb?path=pi/pi.web (accessed 25 May 2020), ‘Br–6 (1801, Lugt n. 6186)’. According to the catalogues, there were 36 lots. James Greig, ed., The Farington Diary, I, 3rd edn (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1922), 302. Available from: Archive.org (accessed 29 October 2017); Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting, II, 1–10. The author mentions only twenty-nine out of the thirty-six paintings included in the catalogues. In particular, see Omodeo, ‘Le Peintre Romain’, 105–24. Also Fredericksen, ed., The Index of Paintings, I, 3 n. 6. See Verdone, Vincenzo Camuccini, 87–96. NG85. According to some documents kept at AECR, fasc. 37, Day and Camuccini had already made a few deals in partnership with Giovanni Torlonia in 1795; see Puddu, ‘Pietro Camuccini’, 101–8. NG32 and NG34, respectively. NG168. Sold to Lord Northwick. AECR, fasc. 36, Account Book between Pietro Camuccini and Alexander Day from 1794 to 1801, 53. AECR, fasc. 37. These receipts of payment refer to four paintings, all being part of the sale of 1801: a Herodias by Titian, ‘due teste di Guido’ corresponding, respectively, to a Mary Magdalene and a Saint Jerome (actually a Saint Peter), and a Landscape with Abraham and Isaac by Gaspard Dughet. See Puddu, Pietro Camuccini e Alexander Day, 128–30 and Appendix C.7–9. AECR, fasc. 37, Receipt of payment issued by Prince Filippo Colonna to Pietro Camuccini in 1798, concerning the Landscape with Abraham and Isaac by Dughet. NG31. Sold to Angerstein together with the two supposed Titians, see footnotes below. NG9, NG18 and NG73, respectively, all from the Aldobrandini Collection. These three paintings are not listed in the note of 1799, perhaps due to the fact that they were in Camuccini’s possession and not in Day’s or, less likely, the latter was the sole owner. In addition to the paintings listed above, the National Gallery currently owns several paintings once owned by at least one of the two dealers, notably: Raphael’s The Madonna of the Pinks (NG6596), Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne (NG35) and the Portrait of Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici and Monsignor Mario Bracci possibly by Girolamo da Carpi, formerly attributed to Sebastiano del Piombo and to Raphael (NG20). Christopher Baker and Tom Henry, eds, The National Gallery Complete Illustrated Catalogue: With a Supplement of New Acquisitions and Loans, 1995–2000 (London:

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Old Masters Worldwide Yale University Press, 2001), 99, 188, 200, 338, 397, 443, 557–8, 671. For other acquisitions made by the National Gallery in the nineteenth century, see Chapter 4 by Susanna Avery-Quash in this volume. Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting, II, 3. For example, Raphael’s Garvagh Madonna remained unsold in 1801 and it was finally sold only in 1816. See the Getty Provenance Index® databases, Sale Catalogs, online at: https://piprod.getty.edu/starweb/pi/servlet.starweb?path=pi/pi.web (accessed 25 May 2020), ‘Br–1347-A (1816)’, lot n. 9. This is stated in Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting, II, 4. Among other buyers of pictures exhibited in London in 1801, Buchanan mentions the Revd William Holwell Carr, Lord Northwick (John Rushout), Lord Garvagh (George Canning), Lord Radstock (William Waldegrave), Thomas Hamlet and George Hibbert. At the time, 6,000 guineas were equal to 26,400 Roman scudi. Oliver C. Bradbury and Nicholas Penny, ‘The Picture Collecting of Lord Nortwick: Part I’, The Burlington Magazine 144 (2002): 485–96. It is pointed out that Day (and Camuccini) even lent the buyer some money, agreeing on an instalment plan for repayment. Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting, II, 8. Pius VI died in exile on 29 August 1799 and Pius VII was elected during the Venetian conclave on 14 March 1800, taking office in Rome only in the following months. Racioppi, Arte e Rivoluzione, 191. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Codice Ferrajoli 440, cc.146–7, Confidential Note of 30 November 1805 addressed to Cardinal Camerlengo Giuseppe Doria. See Giacomini, Per reale vantaggio, 99–100; Racioppi, Arte e Rivoluzione, 164–6. In particular, it seems that Annibale’s altarpiece was covered in a watercolour copy of a painting by Guido Reni, so that it could easily make it through customs. See Donald Posner, Annibale Carracci: A Study in the Reform of Italian Painting around 1590, II (New York: Phaidon, 1971), 57; Anna Maria Pedrocchi, San Gregorio al Celio: storia di una abbazia (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1993), 177; Giacomini, Per reale vantaggio, 98–100. Omodeo, ‘Le Peintre Romain’, III, Annexe I.C.2, 1366. Ibid. Letter of 20 October 1800 from Pietro to Vincenzo Camuccini, transcribed in Omodeo, ‘Le Peintre Romain’, III, Annexe I.C.2, 1362–1363. I am grateful to Barbara Pezzini for confirming this information. See Giovanni Gherardo De Rossi’s letters of 1803, cited in Mazzi, Una miniera, 72, where he complains about the law implemented by Fea, which forced dealers to carry out their operations in secrecy. For Fea’s involvement in drafting the Pius VII Chirograph, see Rossi Pinelli, ‘Carlo Fea’, 27–42. Serenella Rolfi Ožvald, ‘Recensire, scrivere di storia, esportare: Roma “emporio” del gusto fra critica e mercato nel secondo settecento’, Ricerche di storia dell’arte 90 (2006): 11. Thanks to Maler Müller’s letter, one of the most common practices connected with the illicit exportation of paintings from the Papal domains has come to light: to bribe those in charge of sealing the boxes at customs so that they would switch boxes authorized for the exportation with others filled with the paintings which were actually to be exported.

3

Selling Old Masters in Britain, France and the Netherlands: The Networking Strategies of John Smith Julia I. Armstrong-Totten

Although subterranean deals and complex matters of export were distinctive characteristics of the Old Master market, other business models based on free trade were also present. This chapter will analyse the business practice of the London-based picture dealer John Smith and examine his international collaborations. This model would, in the course of the twentieth century, crystallize into visible, international businesses such as Knoedler and Duveen. This chapter also shows that Italy, although important, was not the only nation to supply Old Master paintings or fuel an international trade: there existed a flourishing commerce in Dutch and Flemish pictures which was promoted, among others, by numerous dealers from these countries as well as Great Britain. John Smith (1781–1855) (Fig. 3.1) started out professionally in 1801 as a carver, gilder and picture frame-maker. By 1812, he was appointed picture frame-maker to George IV (1762–1830) when he was Prince Regent, and later was elevated to the prince’s carver and gilder. However, it was towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars,

Fig. 3.1 Moses Haughton Jr., Portrait of John Smith, n.d. Watercolour on ivory, 15.9 × 12.7 cm. © Trustees of the British Museum, London.

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when the European art markets struggled to return to normal, that Smith began his remarkable transformation into a leading picture dealer. While it was obviously a difficult time for those involved in trading, this ambitious businessman made good use of numerous opportunities to advance his career. An early chance to do so involved networking and collaborating with the Brussels-based dealer Lambert Jan Nieuwenhuys (1777–1872), who apparently also instructed Smith on the inner workings of the continental art markets. This knowledge, combined with his renowned skills as a salesman, would move Smith to the forefront of the international art world. By the end of the 1820s, he had established a reputation as a respected connoisseur of Old Master paintings with an upscale gallery located on the highly desirable Bond Street in West End London, and also as a ground-breaking author.

John Smith’s International Contacts Smith’s career is well documented through a large cache of surviving letters.1 They demonstrate that he had many complex working relationships among the world of art dealers who were active in the first half of the nineteenth century in London as well as abroad. As this chapter will reveal, these professional relationships could be classified into three distinct categories: confidants and frequent partners; formal acquaintances and occasional partners; and, finally, former partners who became frenemies.2 It will further show how networking with other dealers, which could lead to collaborations, was at the centre of Smith’s success. He was certainly not unique in reaping the benefits of these types of arrangements, but, in his case, they became his lifeline when networking saved his business from failing during an economic slump that occurred in Britain in the 1830s.3 His correspondence offers rare insight into the often private world of art dealers, but more importantly, it provides a better sense of the networking methods they employed long before the ease of modern communications and travel. Ultimately, this chapter will focus on presenting some of the advantages as well as the pitfalls that Smith experienced while connecting with other dealers during the first forty years of the nineteenth century. It turns out that networking also contributed significantly to a project that developed out of one of Smith’s hobbies and that would greatly advance his business as a picture dealer, which was his celebrated, nine-volume publication, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters (1829–43).4 The series focused on systematically documenting paintings by forty-one artists who were then popular with collectors. In many ways, Smith established a modern prototype for this sort of publication, as nothing else quite like it had been produced about Old Master paintings on such a large scale before.5 Apparently, this dealer also shrewdly understood the subtle advantages of producing a series over a long period of time (thirteen years), because it allowed him to engage with his readers continuously, as demonstrated by correspondence from both customers and strangers with comments, corrections or those wanting their paintings included in future publications.6 These letters best illustrate the idea that a scholarly publication could provide a dealer with an innovative way to reach a wider audience of potential clients.7 The series would also contribute significantly to his reputation as a connoisseur.8 But more importantly for this

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discussion, is the fact that the many trips he made to gather information for the publication inevitably widened his network of acquaintances, as he travelled extensively and for well over a decade to see first-hand many of the paintings that he cited in the series. For instance, in 1834, he made an arduous trip to St Petersburg in Russia to record the paintings housed in the Hermitage, which he managed to arrange only after encountering the collection’s curator, Franz Labensky (1780–1850), while on a business trip to Amsterdam the previous year, demonstrating yet another advantageous aspect of networking.9 These individuals whom he encountered while travelling became more aware of Smith and his publication, which would benefit his Bond Street business as well, as some of them would become his clients.

Fruitful Alliances: William Buchanan and Thomas Emmerson John Smith began trading regularly with other picture dealers almost immediately after he turned to handling works of art. The barrister-turned-picture dealer and author William Buchanan (1777–1864) has the distinction of being the first dealer cited in Smith’s earliest surviving Day Book from 1812.10 Many others who were active in the trade would regularly appear in them as well, as seen in this condensed list of the names repeatedly mentioned in either his ledgers or correspondence (see Table 3.1). From this list, it may be deduced that Smith interacted on a regular basis with several Londonbased dealers, and that he also worked with a small but select group of others located elsewhere in Britain – in Northern England and Scotland – as well as further afield in

Table 3.1 John Smith’s network of dealers by city. Compiled by the author UK

UK (cont.)

Europe

London H. Artaria W. Buchanan T. Emmerson H. Farrer R. Hume Sr. & Jr. G. Pennell M. Peacock J. Nieuwenhuys P. Norton C. O’Neil U. Pizzetta H. Robins Robinson W. Seguier E. & H. Smart Woodburn S. & J. Woodin G. Yates

Manchester Agnew’s

Amsterdam A. Brondgeest J.A.A.de Lelie

© Julia I. Armstrong-Totten.

Liverpool T. Winstanley Edinburgh F. Wright

Brussels H.J. Héris L.J. Nieuwenhuys Mannheim K. Artaria Paris G. Gunn F. Laneuville J. Noé M. Martini Vienna Salzmann

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Northern Europe; his resulting professional network was extremely impressive. It should be borne in mind that networking and subsequent collaborations between dealers was undoubtedly an important element of trading as the early modern art markets developed in Britain, France, Italy and other European countries. As these markets grew and expanded and collecting became more popular across different levels of society, networking could provide a variety of advantages for art dealers. The opportunities could manifest themselves in several ways, through introductions, referrals and partnerships, for example – these were all-important components when conducting business, especially for those dealers trading internationally. A distribution list found at the beginning of an auction catalogue for a sale held in Brussels on 7–8 April 1858 (Lugt 24140) (Fig. 3.2),11 provides a concrete way to comprehend visually the extensive networks that had started to develop around this time.12 Not only had the auctioneer, Étienne Le Roy (1808–78), reached out to numerous artists, dealers and art-related businesses to distribute the catalogue, which suggests a pre-established relationship with these individuals, but he must also have expected to have buyers potentially interested in this sale in thirty-five different European cities. The wide-reaching aim of the catalogue’s recipients and their locations, from St Petersburg to Rome, illustrates an extensive, preexisting network of those involved mid-century in international trading.

Fig. 3.2 Distribution list, loose paper from Etienne Le Roy, Catalogue du Cabinet de Tableaux Anciens, des Ecoles Flamande, Hollandaise et Française . . . de feu M. FrançoisThéodore Rochard, A Bruxelles, Grande Place, No 18, le mercredi 7 et le jeudi 8 avril 1858. Getty Research Institute Archives, Los Angeles.

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John Smith’s correspondence demonstrates that his collaborations could involve simply sharing a joint purchase, asking another dealer to represent him at an auction, or forming a syndicate of dealers to secure a purchase. In one instance, Smith would scheme long-distance to ‘borrow’ important paintings from other dealers who made up part of his London network when he tried to tempt the Dutch politician Johan Gijsbert, Baron Verstolk van Soelen (1776–1845) into making a purchase during a trip to the English capital in 1833. Evidently, the dealer considered the baron to be his exclusive client, because in this instance, Smith wrote from Paris to his eldest son and gallery manager, John Mountjoy Smith (1805–69), instructing him to see if fellow dealer Michael Peacock (c. 1785–1843) might lend them his ‘fine’ Ter Borch to show the nobleman. Smith also had his son check with an old friend, the gentleman-dealer Thomas Emmerson (c. 1776– 1855), to see if he had anything ‘super’ to lend.13 But as Smith and no doubt many other dealers of this era discovered, it was not such an easy proposition to be involved in trading over long distances, mainly because you had blindly to place your trust, your stock or your hard-earned funds into the hands of another dealer, potentially an individual you might not know very well. Consequently, most dealers quickly learned the importance of finding someone trustworthy who knew their local art market as well as their local collectors. One near-disaster described in Smith’s letters illustrates this point. In June 1835, Thomas Emmerson (Fig. 3.3) wrote to Smith, who was again in Paris, asking if he would track down a French dealer on his behalf. Emmerson and Smith had

Fig. 3.3 John Frederick Lewis, Thomas Emmerson Seated at a Table in an Interior, c. 1829. Watercolour, 52.6 × 42.5 cm. Karen Taylor Fine Art.

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worked together in the past, notably in their joint purchase of some important Dutch and Flemish paintings from the Pourtalés-Gorgier Collection in 1826,14 and they had always maintained a good relationship. Emmerson, whose formal announcement of retirement from trading appeared in an 1832 newspaper article,15 had been attempting to liquidate his stock and get his business affairs in order as he withdrew from the business. Apparently, during this process, he had turned over four paintings to Ferdinand Laneuville (d. 1866) in the hope that they would successfully sell in Paris, but Emmerson had not heard from the man in over a year and was plainly worried. He told Smith, ‘if you please treat him delicately as I hope he is an honest man, but such behaviour is strange’.16 In his letter, Emmerson also gave Smith the power to make any decisions on his behalf, and then flatteringly told him that: ‘I think you will be a match for the cunning “petit marchands” who used to beset us.’17 Smith made a conscientious effort to inquire about the paintings with Laneuville. While it took a year of negotiations, he finally managed to get reimbursement for one of the paintings that sold and had the other three returned to Emmerson. Although this arrangement ended positively, due to Smith’s intervention, it illustrates the potential downside of international business relationships in the early nineteenth century, when dealers sometimes felt compelled to make the difficult decision of depending upon a virtual stranger without the benefits of instant communication. It also demonstrates that trust was really at the heart of professional networking during this era.

A Difficult Collaboration: Lambert Jan Nieuwenhuys Unfortunately, John Smith had one early experience of long-distance networking and then partnering which ended badly: with Lambert Jan Nieuwenhuys. In fact, the embittered relationship that subsequently developed between the two set the tone for all the future networking efforts that Smith made, as Nieuwenhuys (and later his son) attempted to discredit Smith whenever possible throughout the remainder of his career. Nieuwenhuys, who had established a successful gallery in Brussels and became known as the art adviser to King William II of the Netherlands, wanted to tap into other major European art markets.18 Eventually, he would form a family network between Brussels, Paris and London, but during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, Nieuwenhuys’ sons were apparently too young to assume the responsibilities of establishing themselves elsewhere. Around 1815, Nieuwenhuys must have approached John Smith about becoming his London associate, presumably mentoring the novice picture dealer by showing him how the markets worked on the Continent, all the while introducing him to important collections.19 Evidence of an amicable working relationship exists from when the two dealers together signed the visitors’ log at the Van Winter Collection in Amsterdam on 6 August 1816.20 Six years later, however, this seemingly cordial business relationship collapsed during their joint purchase in 1822 of Rubens’ famous painting known as Le chapeau de paille,21 although the reasons why are unknown today. The consequences of their quarrel would become more public over time. Within two years of their disagreement, Nieuwenhuys’ 26-year-old son set about establishing himself as a dealer in London. Chrétien Jean or Christianus Johannes

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Nieuwenhuys (1799–1883), known as ‘C. J.’ or simply ‘John’ in England, quickly became Smith’s greatest rival in London and a backstabbing enemy, because the ill feelings that continued to be felt by Lambert Jan Nieuwenhuys towards Smith were transferred from father to son. Smith sometimes mentioned in his letters the difficulties of working around John Nieuwenhuys, as well as the younger dealer’s attempts to discredit him. A few letters written from Amsterdam in 1833 illustrate this point. In July, Smith told his eldest son, ‘J. Nieuwenhuys is here but no one associates with him, nor would the Trade suffer him to be connected with them at the Sales.’22 Three months later Smith, tells his son, ‘Nieuwenhuys is still here but has not met with any great success having sold only one picture. I understand that he does not spare me whenever opportunity offers.’23 Clearly, John Nieuwenhuys had become a professional nuisance to John Smith, but the younger dealer’s hostile attitude became even more apparent after he made their personal issues very public by recording them in a book that he published in 1834.24 His original plan, to present new biographical information about Rembrandt as well as unpublished inventories about the artist’s bankruptcy, could have been truly groundbreaking scholarship. Regrettably, he compromised the publication with additional descriptions about some of his own stock that Christie’s had recently failed to sell at auction,25 to which he added vicious comments about John Smith. Instead of staying focused on Rembrandt, Nieuwenhuys decided to use this opportunity to satisfy a family vendetta. When reading through his remarks, it becomes apparent that the younger dealer was attempting to challenge the credibility of Smith’s Catalogue Raisonné by pointing out mistakes found in the series.26 Nieuwenhuys included over thirty-five snide remarks about Smith in the footnotes, and repeatedly questioned his abilities as a scholar.27 Furthermore, in between the opening section on Rembrandt and the descriptions of his stock, Nieuwenhuys randomly inserted a fifteen-page commentary on Correggio, emphasizing paintings by this artist that he had handled.28 The publication’s end results are disjointed, but these additions did increase its size so that it was bigger than a large pamphlet, as his Rembrandt commentary and documents only totalled forty pages. Apparently, Nieuwenhuys united all this unrelated information to get his newly discovered material on Rembrandt quickly into print, and to pre-empt Smith, who had already announced as early as 1833 that the forthcoming seventh volume in his series (published in 1836) would be dedicated solely to the Dutch artist. It is difficult to know today which author first had the idea of reproducing archival documents, as Smith also published the inventory related to the artist’s insolvency.29 Not surprisingly, their contemporaries picked up on the bizarreness of Nieuwenhuys’ efforts, as well as the tensions existing between the two dealers, as seen in this anonymous review in the Athenaeum: Mr. Nieuwenhuys has collected some curious and interesting facts relating to Rembrandt; but, with this exception, his work is little other than a Catalogue Raisonné of his own pictures sold last season by Mr. Christie, and seems to have been published for the purpose of attacking, in a sort of running fire . . . Mr. Smith, a rival picture-dealer.30

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Thus, Nieuwenhuys’ publication, which could have been a worthy scholarly contribution about Rembrandt, was, instead, marred by professional rivalry and personal antagonism. Almost certainly because of this publication, the conflict between the Nieuwenhuys family and Smith continued to escalate. In 1842, Smith wrote to his sons about a potential deal involving two full-length portraits by Rembrandt, which he described as ‘splendid’.31 He explained to them that the Dutch artist-turned-dealer Albertus Brondgeest (1786– 1849) (Fig. 3.4) – who often worked with Smith in the 1830s – had some influence with the deceased owner’s executor, and that they could purchase the pair outright or buy shares in partnership with Brondgeest. While Smith obviously admired the paintings, his interest in them undoubtedly stemmed from the fact that Lambert Jan Nieuwenhuys, his ‘enemy’ (as he refers to him in the letter), had already made an offer for them on behalf of King William. Smith told his sons that Brondgeest also wished ‘to keep them from the hands of Nieuwenhuys’.32 Smith’s sons respectfully declined the offer, claiming financial concerns, and so Smith senior backed away from the deal as well, even though the possibility of outbidding his long-time nemesis no doubt appealed to his somewhat battered ego. Eventually, Nieuwenhuys purchased the pair on behalf of the monarch.33 Statements made by some of his contemporaries suggest that Smith was not alone in experiencing difficulties working with the Nieuwenhuys father and son: it appears that both could be quite ruthless in dealing with their colleagues. For instance, the French dealer Pierre-Joseph Lafontaine (1758–1835) called the senior Nieuwenhuys ‘a

Fig. 3.4 Johan Coenraad Hamburger, Portrait of Albertus Brondgeest, 1841. Pencil and ink, 17.1 × 12.8 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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liar and a scoundrel’ in a letter written in 1825 to his Belgian agent, the dealer Charles Spruyt (1769–1851).34 Additionally, Lafontaine found Lambert Jan Nieuwenhuys to be both dishonest and unscrupulous, and fumed over the fact that the latter had boasted that the prince, later King William, ‘would not buy a single painting without consulting him, and that he could make him buy whatever he wished’.35

Dealing in Amsterdam and Brussels: Albertus Brondgeest and Henri Joseph Héris This kind of professional rivalry was rare for John Smith. Even though the soured relationship with the Nieuwenhuys family would come to haunt Smith for the rest of his professional life, his correspondence attests to the fact that he had numerous successful relationships with many other dealers. But, in the future, he would proceed much more cautiously, especially when reaching out to continental dealers. Eventually, he found it necessary to work with both local and international dealers because he reached a point where his business could not survive without networking and engaging in joint deals. As noted above, early in the 1830s, the economy in Britain started experiencing a major downturn, which forced dealers to consider some new strategies to stay afloat during these difficult years. Furthermore, the art market itself was changing, notably after large numbers of copies and fakes were reportedly imported to Britain between 1833 and 1838, and then peddled by unscrupulous dealers.36 Because of these challenges at home, Smith carefully observed and reassessed the suddenly flourishing coeval art market in the Netherlands, and decided to cultivate further some of his international contacts. He formed silent partnerships with two dealers: the earlier mentioned Albertus Brondgeest of Amsterdam and Henri Joseph Héris (1790–after 1876) of Brussels.37 The arrangements that Smith made with Brondgeest, for example, frequently involved one collector, the wealthy banker Adriaan van der Hoop (1778–1854).38 In fact, these particular transactions saved Smith’s business, as Van der Hoop bought twenty-two paintings from Smith, often at extraordinary prices.39 Some of his purchases may be found among the great masterpieces currently hanging in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, like Rembrandt’s Isaac and Rebecca (a painting formerly known as The Jewish Bride) and Anthony van Dyck’s portrait of Johannes Baptista Franck.40 Basically, what started out as a short-term alliance between Smith and Brondgeest due to economic instability and other issues in Britain, turned into mutually beneficial joint ventures that continued for many years. Their long-lasting partnership demonstrates that it was, indeed, possible for dealers to collaborate productively over great distances and maintain profitable working relationships over a sustained period.

Dealing in Paris: George Gunn Smith’s final, major networking endeavour involved a legally binding agreement that he made with George Gunn,41 an international curiosities dealer, who was once famous for selling the prized ‘Rubens Vase’ to the legendary collector William Beckford

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(1760–1844).42 Gunn was now managing a Parisian workshop that produced exquisite reproductions of room fittings and furniture in the historic Louis styles. His English clients included the diplomat Charles Stuart, 1st Baron Stuart de Rothesay (1779– 1845), and the politician George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland (1786–1861). In 1835, Smith’s third son, William Mountjoy Smith (1812– 71), moved to Paris to improve his drawing skills and spoken French, and so John Smith reached out to various acquaintances like Gunn to help him get settled. Within a year, an eager William and a desperate Gunn, who was experiencing ongoing financial difficulties with his business, proposed that they should all become partners. William dreamed of becoming as famous as his father, while Gunn saw obvious benefits to a partnership with a financially sound picture dealer who had a wide range of international contacts. From John Smith’s point of view, his gallery could benefit from having someone to assist with packing and international shipping issues, as he regularly purchased paintings and bronzes in Paris. Plus, their two businesses were quite different in purpose, so they could easily share clients like the Duke of Sutherland. John Smith, however, had many doubts about the proposal, as he questioned William’s reliability and felt very uneasy over Gunn’s endless financial problems.43 Despite such reservations, he agreed to the venture, perhaps to appease his son, and by June 1836, Smith reported from Paris that all the parties involved were satisfied with the terms of their formal contract.44 Unfortunately, once again, a networking relationship failed, this time due to William’s immaturity, Gunn’s lack of financial acumen and the unstable British economy.45 Smith senior took the lead in dissolving their arrangement in June 1838. Although it was not quite the unpleasant breakup that he had experienced a decade earlier with Lambert Jan Nieuwenhuys, the collapse of this partnership did terminate forever the cordial relationship between the Smith family and Gunn.46

Conclusion The most fascinating consequence is the cautionary tale that these networking experiences provided to Smith’s eldest sons, after they took control of the firm in 1837. John Mountjoy and Samuel Mountjoy Smith (1809–74) had sometimes criticized their father for depending so heavily upon other dealers, becoming incensed in 1840, for example, when two of his closest London allies, Robert Hume and John Chaplin, treated them unfairly during a joint venture involving a pair of paintings by Adriaen van Ostade.47 Because of this incident, the sons backed away from networking on a regular basis, at least with their father’s connections. Almost all the names that appear on the list cited earlier of their father’s network disappeared from their ledgers and correspondence. Instead, they made a conscious decision to focus their efforts on working with new clients with different interests, like the British industrialist and politician Beriah Botfield (1807–63)48 or the French physician Louis La Caze (1798– 1869),49 both of whom preferred second-rank Old Master paintings. Even though the Smith brothers abandoned one important mechanism of trading previously employed by their father, their methods would successfully carry the business forward into the second half of the nineteenth century.

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While this chapter has focused on the professional activities of a single picture dealer working during the first half of the nineteenth century, it also throws light upon his interactions with others involved in the profession, illustrating how widespread networking and collaborating had become in the burgeoning modern art world. Furthermore, these examples have provided details about how and why some dealers used these tactics. Although John Smith had some negative experiences from his professional interactions and joint dealings, he nonetheless recognized the importance that they had upon his business, notably during an era of uncertain economic conditions. Thus, not only do these examples from Smith’s career contribute to the understanding of networking during a historic time and place, they should also be seen as precursors to similar means of trading that took place decades, even centuries, later.

Notes 1

2

3

4

5

The Smith correspondence cited in this chapter appears in Charles Sebag-Montefiore and Julia I. Armstrong-Totten, A Dynasty of Dealers: John Smith and Successors, 1801–1924: A Study of the Art Market in Nineteenth-Century London (London: Roxburghe Club, 2013). The word ‘frenemy’, coined in the twentieth century, describes someone who acts as both a friend and enemy, typically in close personal and professional relationships. In the case of Smith and Nieuwenhuys, while they maintained a cordial business association for a number of years, Smith’s correspondence indicates that later they behaved maliciously towards one another behind the scenes. However, their attempts at maintaining some sort of public congeniality ended around 1834, when John Nieuwenhuys’ publication (discussed below) appeared in print. For a synopsis of the various difficulties that developed in the 1830s and discussed in Smith’s letters, see Julia Armstrong-Totten, ‘A Decade of Change and Compromise: John Smith (1781–1855) and the Selling of Old Master Paintings in the 1830s’, in British Models of Art Collecting and the American Response, ed. Inge Reist (Surrey: Ashgate, 2014), 91–3. The complete title provided John Smith’s readers with full disclosure about the purpose and content of the nine-volume series: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the most eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters; in which is included a short Biographical Notice of the Artists, with a copious description of their Principal Pictures; a statement of the prices at which such pictures have been sold at public sales on the Continent and in England; a reference to the Galleries and Private Collections, in which a large portion are at present; and the names of the artists by whom they have been engraved; to which is added, a brief notice of the scholars & imitators of the great masters of the above schools: by John Smith, dealer in pictures, late of Great Marlborough Street (London: Smith and Son, 1829–42). Smith’s publication would later inspire the esteemed Dutch scholar and collector Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863–1930), who used it as the foundation of his revised ten-volume series on Dutch artists, originally published between 1907 and 1928. See Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts: nach dem Muster John Smith’s catalogue raisonné, Assisted by O. Hirschmann, W. Stechow and K. Bauch, 10 vols (Esslingen am Neckar: Paul Neff Verlag, 1907–28).

80 6 7 8

9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19

20 21 22 23 24

25

26

Old Masters Worldwide See various letters in Sebag-Montefiore and Armstrong-Totten, A Dynasty of Dealers, as examples, 112–18. Smith was not the first London art dealer active in the nineteenth century to produce a scholarly publication, but his was the first subscription series. For a detailed analysis of Smith’s series, see Antoinette Friedenthal, ‘John Smith, His Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters (1829–1842) and the “Stigma of PICTURE DEALER” ’, Journal of Art Historiography 9 (2013), online at: https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress. com/2013/12/friedenthal.pdf (accessed 25 May 2020). His fortuitous encounter with Labensky was crucial for accessing this collection, because it was not yet available for public viewing. For an overview of Buchanan’s career, see Hugh Brigstocke, ‘William Buchanan: His Friends and Rivals: The Importation of Old Master Paintings into Great Britain during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century’, Apollo 234 (1981): 76–84. The collection for sale came from the estate of the recently deceased French-born artist, François-Théodore Rochard (1798–1858), who had settled in London by 1820. Generally, distribution lists found in earlier auction catalogues tended to target a more modest-sized audience. Sebag-Montefiore and Armstrong-Totten, A Dynasty of Dealers, 152. The paintings were subsequently sold at an auction held in London on 19–20 May 1826 (Lugt 11181). ‘The Emmerson Collection of Pictures’, London Age, 10 June 1832, 7. Sebag-Montefiore and Armstrong-Totten, A Dynasty of Dealers, 179–80. Ibid. Some of the activities of Lambert Jan Nieuwenhuys are recounted in Erik Hinterding and Femy Horsch, ‘ “A Small but Choice Collection”: The Art Gallery of King Willem II of the Netherlands, 1792–1849’, Simiolus 1/2 (1989): 4–122. The year 1815 is the first in which Nieuwenhuys the elder is found in the Smith ledgers; his name continued to appear sporadically until around the time that Smith sold the Rubens portrait to Sir Robert Peel in 1824. This page of the guestbook is illustrated in Sebag-Montefiore and Armstrong-Totten, A Dynasty of Dealers, 51. The painting, now at the National Gallery, London (NG852), is thought to be a portrait of Susanna Lunden. Sebag-Montefiore and Armstrong-Totten, A Dynasty of Dealers, 153. Ibid., 166. Christianus Johannes Nieuwenhuys, A Review of the Lives and Works of Some of the Most Eminent Painters: With Remarks on the Opinions and Statements of Former Writers (London: Henry Hooper, 1834). Although originally scheduled for 3 May 1833, Nieuwenhuys’s sale was held instead on 10 May 1833 (Lugt 13295 and 13307). A catalogue annotated by the collector James Hughes Anderdon (1790/3–1879) and on deposit at the Rijksureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie helps to explain why the paintings did not sell. Anderdon noted, ‘There was a prevailing impression that the sale was not genuine & that there were reserves on several pictures – the names of the purchasers not given out.’ See, as one example, in A Review of the Lives, the footnote found on pp. 102 and 103, in which Nieuwenhuys chided Smith for citing incorrectly the same print by Fiammingo in relationship to two different paintings by Anthony van Dyck found in his Catalogue Raisonné.

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27 In another instance, Nieuwenhuys reported on other errors he thought Smith had made, adding harshly: ‘I have too often seen the pitiful attempts of Mr. Smith to misconstrue facts; and the supposition here made use of I can only imagine to have arisen from jealous feelings.’ See A Review of the Lives in the second footnote on pp. 187 and 188. 28 The section on Correggio appears on pp. 47–61. For one example of how Nieuwenhuys used this publication to boast about the successful sales of his own stock, see his account of selling The Madonna of the Basket to the National Gallery, London (NG23) in June 1825 in A Review of the Lives, 49. 29 Smith had probably already located this information through the assistance of Albertus Brondgeest. 30 Charles Wentworth Dike, ed., ‘ “Smith’s Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 6.” – “A Review of the Lives and Works of some of the most eminent Painters, by C.J. Nieuwenhuys” ’, Athenaeum, no. 375–426 (1835): 351. 31 Sebag-Montefiore and Armstrong-Totten, A Dynasty of Dealers, 337. 32 Ibid. 33 The pair, which are today in the Wallace Collection, London, are known as Jean Pellicorne with His Son Caspar (P82) and Susanna van Collen, Wife of Jean Pellicorne with Her Daughter Anna (P90). 34 As cited and translated in Hinterding and Horsch, ‘A Small but Choice Collection’, 14. 35 Ibid., 15. 36 For a discussion of this issue, as well as further details about these changes, see Thomas M. Bayer and John R. Page, The Development of the Art Market in England: Money as Muse, 1730–1900 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), 96–8. While John Smith never mentioned these particular issues in his surviving correspondence, in December 1838 his son wrote from Liverpool complaining about competing dealers that he called ‘riff-raff ’, who were selling lower-quality stock. See Sebag-Montefiore and Armstrong-Totten, A Dynasty of Dealers, 268. 37 Neither of these ‘silent’ partners became involved in the day-to-day operations of Smith’s business in London. Rather, he sent them paintings that he thought would sell at higher prices on the Continent. 38 For more information about Van der Hoop and his collecting activities, see Ellinoor Bergvelt, Jan Piet Filedt Kok and Norbert Middelkoop, De Hollandse meesters van een Amsterdamse bankier: de verzameling van Adriaan van der Hoop (1778–1854) (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Waanders B.V., 2004). 39 For details about many of Van der Hoop’s purchases from Smith and the prices he paid for them, see Sebag-Montefiore and Armstrong-Totten, A Dynasty of Dealers, 141–92. 40 The Rijksmuseum’s online catalogue provides information about the Van der Hoop paintings on loan to the institution as well as their current object numbers. (The number for the above-cited Rembrandt painting is SK-C–216 and the Van Dyck number is SK-C–284.). See online at: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/research/ online-collection-catalogue (accessed 25 May 2020). 41 For additional information about Gunn’s previous activities, see Mark Westgarth, A Biographical Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Antique and Curiosity Dealers (Glasgow: Montgomery Litho Group, 2009), 110. 42 The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland (42.562). 43 Smith’s concerns about William were well founded, as the latter declared bankruptcy in 1843, much to his father’s chagrin, while Gunn’s letters regularly mentioned his precarious financial circumstances.

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44 Sebag-Montefiore and Armstrong-Totten, A Dynasty of Dealers, 206. 45 The details about their partnership and its dissolution are documented in ibid., 193–270. 46 The two dealers would apparently correspond one last time, in 1840, after Gunn wrote to Smith about the tragic death of his wife and begged the dealer for financial assistance. See ibid., 284–5. 47 Ibid., 288–90. 48 They supplied Botfield with most of the paintings found in the 1848 publication titled Catalogue of Pictures in the Possession of Beriah Botfield, Esq. at Norton Hall (London: William Nichols, Shakspeare Press, 1848). 49 For further information about La Caze and his unconventional role as a tastemaker, see Guillaume Faroult and Sophie Eloy, La collection La Caze: chefs-d’œuvre des peintures des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris: Hazan, 2007).

4

A Network of Agents: Buying Old Masters for the National Gallery, London Susanna Avery-Quash

The early nineteenth-century Old Master market was not based on large corporate firms with branches in numerous countries, but, as shown in the previous chapters, it developed through private initiative. These individuals, known as ‘agents’, often traded in art as a sideline to their prime activity – this was sometimes as diplomats, and increasingly as artists or engaged with other art-related professions such as picture framing and restoration. As illustrated in the previous chapters, dealers like Camuccini, Day, Smith and others tended to be extremely mobile, importing and exporting works of art from Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands to England and other countries, often utilizing networks of professional and friendly contacts. This chapter explores how the National Gallery in London, as the first major public institution dedicated to the collecting and display of Old Master painting in the United Kingdom, interacted early on with such agents to acquire eligible paintings available on the market. The relationship of the National Gallery with art agents is an under-studied aspect of its history. The aim of this chapter, therefore, is to offer an overview of this phenomenon, from the origins of the institution in 1824 to the retirement of its third director, Frederic Burton, in 1894, by which point the National Gallery had established new operational strategies, not least a reliance on certain professional dealerships, notably Agnew’s. The chapter assesses how agents of various types were employed, considers discernable patterns in their employment over the seventy-year timeframe under consideration, and contextualizes these interactions with what was happening at other public art institutions in London and other major European art centres.

Agents During the Early History of the National Gallery, 1824–55 In the period 1824 to 1855, the National Gallery’s first Trustees gave comparatively little thought to how to expand on the foundation collection of thirty-eight Old Master paintings in Grand Manner taste which Lord Liverpool’s government had purchased from the heirs of the émigré financer and philanthropist John Julius 83

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Angerstein (1753–1823).1 This was largely because there was no designated purchase grant, no agreed-on acquisition policy and extremely limited space in the institution’s first home – Angerstein’s town house at 100 Pall Mall (the National Gallery moved to William Wilkins’ purpose-built art gallery on Trafalgar Square in 1838). When occasionally desirable paintings became available abroad, the Trustees called on foreign consuls for practical assistance; for instance, H.M.’s Minister in Florence procured catalogues and information about the Rinuccini Collection in 1851 and about the Lombardi-Baldi Collection in 1853.2 Such help was reminiscent of the kind that had traditionally been offered to the Crown and aristocratic collectors by foreign ambassadors.3 In fact, the Gallery, albeit it in more minor ways, continued to rely on the help of diplomats working abroad, a case in point being the assistance received from Sir James Hudson (1810–85), the British Minister at Turin between 1852 and 1863.4 One key area, however, where diplomats could not generally help was over matters of attribution and the related question of valuation. In relation to authenticating works of art which came up for sale, the Trustees who themselves tended to fight shy of entering this particular arena, sought advice not only from the Gallery’s Keeper, William Seguier (1772–1843),5 arguably the most prominent art adviser, dealer and official functionary of the Regency era, but also from other acknowledged experts. These experts were often professional British painters, who were thought to have a ‘good eye’ from having studied the art of the past for their own practice (occasionally they built up private collections of their own, particularly impressive holdings being amassed by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Thomas Lawrence) and who traditionally had assisted aristocratic collectors in this way.6 Additionally, various members of the art trade were consulted as expert witnesses. For instance, the opinion of Samuel Woodburn (1786–1853), a dealer in pictures and drawings, was sought in relation to some Correggios, including The Madonna of the Basket and to confirm the authenticity of Raphael’s An Allegory (‘Vision of a Knight’),7 while in relation to Guido Reni’s Susannah and the Elders, the views of other London-based agents were taken into consideration: Henry Farrer (1798–1866) and John Seguier (1785–1856), the latter the younger brother of the National Gallery’s first keeper.8 Another area where those involved in the art trade came into their own was over the actual sourcing of potential new acquisitions, which was an activity involving knowledge of collections and markets. Given the National Gallery’s emphasis on collecting and displaying historical continental art rather than works of the British School, the markets in question tended to be foreign rather than domestic ones. The idea of the Gallery employing someone to help negotiate the art market abroad was first raised when the collection built up by Emperor Napoleon’s uncle, Cardinal Joseph Fesch (1763–1839), came up for sale in 1844. What is interesting is that the initiative was taken not by the Gallery but by the proactive art dealer, Samuel Woodburn, whose premises were conveniently close to the National Gallery at 112 St Martin’s Lane. He wrote to the Trustees, offering the professional services of his brother William to secure works from this sale. The Gallery responded positively, sending back a list of four eligible pictures, but although Woodburn pursued them, ultimately none of them was acquired.9 The most pertinent part of the ongoing correspondence for the current discussion is a letter that relates to the terms of the dealer’s employment (Fig. 4.1).10 There seems

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Fig. 4.1 Letter from Samuel Woodburn with suggested conditions for employment by the National Gallery, 4 November 1845. Photo © The National Gallery, London.

to have been some confusion in relation to the Fesch Sale and so Samuel Woodburn wrote to the then Keeper, Charles Eastlake (appointed as Seguier’s successor in 1843), laying out terms – presumably for future engagement on a short-term basis. His offer, as recorded in the Gallery’s board minutes, shows what was then considered acceptable business practice: that in consideration of a Salary of £200 per annum for his brother William Woodburn, during a term of 3 years, travelling and other expences [sic] included, he [Samuel] engages to offer to the Trustees annually a certain number of pictures at a profit of from 20 to 30 percent, and to send them direct to the Gallery, leaving them there during one month for approval or rejection, and, also, engaging not to offer any fine picture to any person until rejected by the Trustees, during that period.11

Later on, Samuel Woodburn changed the terms into even more favourable conditions for the National Gallery. The Woodburns’ attempt to secure regular employment was never realized as the Treasury remained adamant that expert help should be hired on an ad hoc basis. Yet William Woodburn was the first person to be paid by the Gallery for his interventions

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on its behalf in the art market, and was employed to do so more than anyone else in the period between 1828 and 1855. Two episodes of the early 1850s record both the type of work Woodburn undertook as well as the Gallery’s appraisal of its decision to pay for an agent as the need arose. In 1851, Samuel Woodburn, together with Thomas Uwins, the Keeper who succeeded Eastlake in that post in 1847, was instructed to examine and report on the authenticity, condition, desirability, value and provenance of the Manfrin Collection in Venice.12 Woodburn stipulated that for these services he should be ‘paid a gratuity of Two Hundred Pounds, and his travelling expences [sic]’, and the National Gallery agreed. Woodburn duly submitted a report, in which he recommended 120 pictures as potentially eligible purchases for the national collection. Yet, as in the case of the Fesch Collection noted above, the Trustees did not ultimately act on his advice as they declared themselves in no position to enter into formal negotiations with Manfrin’s heirs. Instead, William Woodburn was asked to furnish further details in relation to the Manfrin Collection’s Venetian and Paduan pictures. Furthermore, he was paid tardily in April 1852 and then only £150 rather than the £200 originally agreed. And even this reduced fee came with the proviso that Woodburn must undertake an additional new journey to Paris.13 It is due to these circumstances that William Woodburn collaborated once again with Uwins, acting as the Gallery’s agent, on this occasion in relation to purchases from two sales which took place in Paris in the summer of 1852: the Soult Collection and the Collot Collection.14 The former collection, comprising 155 works of art, had been built up by one of Napoleon’s generals, Marshal Nicolas-Jean-de-Dieu Soult (1769–1851), whereas the latter prestigious collection had been amassed by the French politician, financer and art patron, Jean-Pierre Collot (1774–1852). Woodburn duly recommended eleven paintings for purchase from the two collections, but in the end the Trustees asked him to pursue only three of them, for a sum not exceeding £10,000: from the Soult Sale Murillo’s The Immaculate Conception and Titian’s The Tribute Money (Fig. 4.2), and from the Collot Sale a Virgin and Child with Saints, attributed by the owner to Palma Vecchio, but noted in the auction catalogue as by Giorgione.15 The conclusion of this episode is telling. The Murillo escaped the Gallery’s grasp when it was bought for the Louvre in Paris for over £23,000. Regarding the Titian, while the Trustees thanked Woodburn for securing it at a good price, voices were soon raised against the picture’s authenticity. This uncertainty reflected badly on the Gallery’s choice of agent and had major knock-on effects, not least in relation to the calling of a governmental Select Committee the following year to investigate all aspects of the Gallery’s running.16 Even more embarrassing was the fate of the Palma Vecchio for, although the Gallery had agreed that Woodburn should bid for it, once he had done so successfully and the picture had arrived at Trafalgar Square, the Trustees turned it down as not ‘an advisable addition to the National Collection’. The Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Lord Lansdowne, ‘expressed his willingness to take the Picture at the Price for which it was purchased’, but this adopted solution did not take away from the basic fact that the Gallery, very late in the day, had rescinded a former decision.17 On balance, it is fair to say that the National Gallery’s earliest interventions in the art market were not successes; while its officials may have come to query Woodburn’s competency, it certainly did not behave honourably towards its first appointed agent.

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Fig. 4.2 Titian, The Tribute Money, about 1560–8 (perhaps begun in the 1540s). Oil on canvas, 112.2 × 103.2 cm. © The National Gallery, London.

William Woodburn was not employed again and relations between the institution and dealership only worsened as the brothers attempted on a number of occasions to foist on the Trustees various collections of Old Master drawings and early Italian art of questionable quality and finally even their premises on Pall Mall with all their remaining stock.18 The National Gallery’s first forays into the international art market had taught it just how complicated and unpredictable negotiations could be.

Agents During the Directorship of Charles Eastlake, 1855–65 The next phase of the National Gallery’s expansion of its Old Master collection came after it had been reconstituted by a Treasury Minute of 27 March 1855. This radical action – virtually unique in the annals of UK public art institutions – took place after the governmental Select Committee of 1853, noted above, had met and discussed the future direction and management of the Gallery especially in relation to the purchase, conservation and display of its pictures. It determined that the institution should, with immediate effect, change direction in all respects. Henceforth, rather than continuing to act as a treasure trove of already acknowledged masterpieces, the Gallery was to aim

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to become a comprehensive survey collection of Western European painting. With this vision came a new proactive acquisition policy, which stipulated that a gapfilling exercise should commence, beginning with a targeted focus on the earliest periods of art.19 To make this ambitious strategy practicable, an annual purchase grant was established of £10,000, and a competent staff appointed. Eastlake was appointed the first Director and two other posts came into being – that of ‘Keeper and Secretary’ (a development of the earlier position of ‘Keeper’, and a post given to Ralph Nicholson Wornum) and ‘Travelling Agent’.20 The latter position was a development of the role played by Samuel and William Woodburn, but with several differences, one being that it was set up to be permanent if part-time (for five years, in the first instance, in line with the terms of appointment of the director) and another being that the impetus now lay with the Gallery. Eastlake’s choice of art agent21 fell on the Bavarian Otto Mündler (1811–70), who was not only an art historian, connoisseur (he had made his reputation reattributing paintings in the Louvre’s collection) and linguist, but also a picture dealer with experience of working in the international art market.22 The Treasury Minute of March 1855, which reconstituted the National Gallery, stated what the agent’s duties would be. The post-holder was required: ‘to visit the private collections of distinguished families abroad, ascertaining and describing the contents, and obtaining the earliest information of any intended sale. The agent will be paid his travelling and personal expenses on a scale hereafter to be fixed.’23 Eastlake’s interventions at a board meeting two months later defined the task further: the Travelling Agent should conclude negotiations, oversee practicalities to do with transport and insurance, and gather pertinent material concerning attribution, provenance and so on, for use in official publications. The salary for this post was fixed at £300 a year (the Director’s was set at £1,000 and the Keeper’s at £500).24 A wider context for the new post is found in answers given to a questionnaire that had been sent to major foreign art galleries as part of the investigations of the 1853 Select Committee, and which were reproduced as an appendix to the commissioner’s lengthy report published in 1855.25 Two questions had focused on the employment of art agents in the work of expanding national collections. The first question had asked: ‘In what mode, and by what advice or authority, are effected those acquisitions of works of art which take place from time to time for the extension or maintenance of the collection?’ and the second: ‘Are agents employed, either by mission or correspondence, in foreign countries to effect such acquisitions?’26 A variety of responses came back, from which it appears that Eastlake, while drawing on his knowledge of practices abroad, was being innovative by employing Mündler in the way he did – as a member of staff and on a permanent basis. Even if in Belgium three ‘professional picture-dealers’ were invited by the Museum of Painting and Sculpture to become honorary ‘Commissaires Experts’ to give their opinion on the authenticity and the price of works under consideration,27 it is clear that no other country at the time had its own agent permanently employed to travel abroad in search of masterpieces for their national collections.28 To fulfil his brief, Mündler kept travel diaries; one in German, and a second briefer record of his daily activity in English for the benefit of his employers, the National

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Fig. 4.3 Page 15 verso of Otto Mündler’s travel diary, dated December 1855. National Gallery Archive, London. Photo © The National Gallery, London.

Gallery’s Trustees (Fig. 4.3).29 Mündler recorded in his journal whom he met and which paintings he saw, as well as his thoughts concerning attributions, conservation, prices and so on, a range of data that parallels what is found in the working notebooks that Eastlake was concurrently compiling.30 Eastlake would then act on the basis of his own and Mündler’s judgements. Among the pictures that Mündler helped to acquire were a Virgin and Child and Saint Jerome Reading in a Landscape, both by Giovanni Bellini and both bought in his first year of employment from private collections in Venice.31 In 1857, he concluded the purchase of twenty-two early Florentine and Sienese paintings from the Lombardi-Baldi Collection.32 In the same year, Mündler’s involvement in the purchase of Veronese’s The Family of Darius before Alexander (Fig. 4.4) from the Pisani Collection, Venice, did not work out so well for him, and in fact lost him his job. The official verdict for his dismissal was that Mündler had over-tipped Count Pisani’s servants in his attempts to secure the deal, but more probable reasons include the parsimony and xenophobia of some influential British politicians who quibbled over the submitted expenses.33 In fact, there had been a concerted effort in certain quarters to demolish Mündler’s post soon after its creation: as early as August 1855, Arthur Otway, the MP for Stafford, had raised objections, which, from July 1857, had been taken up yet more fiercely by Francis Charteris, Lord

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Fig. 4.4 Paolo Veronese, The Family of Darius before Alexander, 1565–7. Oil on canvas, 236.2 × 474.9 cm. © The National Gallery, London.

Elcho.34 The Travelling Agent position was finally abolished on 13 July 1858, and it was never reinstituted. After Mündler’s dismissal,35 a decision Eastlake contested in vain (he succeeded only in securing a severance payment for Mündler), the burden of inspections fell largely on the Director’s shoulders. Eastlake, however, sought and gained Treasury approval to continue employing agents on an occasional basis, the associated costs being kept within ‘the limit of the vote for travelling expenses’.36 Under the new dispensation, Mündler, ironically, continued to be employed, undertaking, for instance, a trip to Germany and France in 1864.37 Eastlake also sought help from a number of connoisseurs and dealers based in Italy, most importantly Michelangelo Gualandi (1793–1887), a scholar of Bolognese art, whom he employed throughout his directorship to source eligible paintings (and books about them) in the Emilian area.38 It was Gualandi, for instance, who secured the two final paintings that Eastlake acquired for the national collection: Giovanni Santi’s Virgin and Child (NG751) from the Mazza Collection, Ferrara and Lippo di Dalmasio’s The Madonna of Humility (NG752) from the Bolognese Hercolani Collection. More intermittently, Eastlake also worked with Giuseppe Molteni (1800–67), Director of the Brera Gallery in Milan during the 1860s and a notable restorer. In 1859, Eastlake noted that: ‘Molteni having now for nearly two years acted as my agent here sending me drawings for frames, making inquiries about pictures &c, I have thought it be just to pay him £50 for that time, for agency.’39 Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle (1819–97), author of the influential History of Painting in Italy from the Second to the Sixteenth Century (1864–6), and the formidable connoisseur Giovanni Morelli (1816–91) were others on whom Eastlake occasionally called for assistance of various kinds.40 For instance, Cavalcaselle accompanied Eastlake on a tour of The Marches in 1858, and in 1859 sent him a report on the Campana Collection, then being sold in Rome. Such activity clearly demonstrates a return to the ad hoc approach of an earlier period at the National Gallery.

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Agents During the Directorships of William Boxall and Frederic Burton,1866–94 The use of agents to find Old Master paintings for the National Gallery continued during the subsequent directorship of William Boxall, from February 1866. A close friend of Eastlake, much of Boxall’s term of office was shaped by the ideas of his predecessor, not least in relation to the perceived benefits of employing an agent to help acquire elegible pictures for the national collection. Certainly such a figure was essential to Boxall given that he spoke no foreign languages proficiently and did not have the contacts abroad that Eastlake had cultivated. Early on, Boxall noted: ‘Eastlake on his first appointment insisted upon the necessity of a travelling agent. I confess the difficulty of finding one with every requisite qualification, but such a person is indispensable.’41 Boxall continued to use some of the Italian contacts formerly employed by Eastlake. Cavalcaselle and Morelli, however, were, by this point, less reliable. The Risorgimento’s consolidation of the different states of the Italian Peninsula into the single Kingdom of Italy was tied up with ever greater attempts to prevent important works of art from leaving the country, and as strong patriots, Cavalcaselle and Morelli became heavily involved in the resulting initiatives. ‘Morelli and Cavalcaselle,’ Boxall wrote to the Trustee Sir Austen Henry Layard, as early as 1859, ‘I find are both enemies to our carrying off fine pictures and I cannot tell you how impossible such acquisitions are become throughout the country.’42 Italian agents from whom Boxall did receive some minor help were Gualandi and Paolo Orlandi, the latter another name that crops up earlier on in Eastlake’s notebooks.43 In a document of 1866, in which these individuals’ travelling expenses and agency were paid, similar payments were also made to Mündler, indicating that the Gallery’s former Travelling Agent continued to be employed sporadically by the second director. Soon enough, however, Boxall found ‘his man’. Correspondence in the National Gallery archive and in the Biblioteca Statale, Cremona, reveals that Boxall’s chief aide was Federico Sacchi (1835–1902), a connoisseur and musician from Cremona, who was well qualified to assist as he knew about archives, spoke several languages and had many useful contacts in North Italy.44 Initially approached to accompany Boxall on a visit to Italy on Gallery business in 1866 as a private secretary – in essence to act as Boxall’s guide and translator, Sacchi ended up being Boxall’s unofficial agent on two further trips to Italy in 1867 and 1869 (Fig. 4.5). On other occasions, he assisted Boxall ‘on the ground’, when in Italy for his own business, by reporting on the state of the Italian art market. Their working relationship lasted until 1872. Extant letters from Italy shed light on the nature of Sacchi’s employment. In October 1867, Sacchi noted how he would inspect the pictures being brought to Boxall’s attention and write up reports, which would feed into Boxall’s decision whether to accept them or not. The correspondence further reveals that Sacchi was largely responsible for the Gallery’s purchase of several Cremonese school pictures: Boccaccino’s Christ Carrying the Cross, and two works by Marco Marziale, The Circumcision and The Virgin and Child with Saints.45 He also became involved with various administrative tasks in London, including the creation of dossiers on painters active between 1190 and 1600 as well as with the administration of the Gallery’s new

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Fig. 4.5 Diary of Federico Sacchi, dated 23 November–19 December 1869, and his book of travelling expenses, dated 27 April 1866–24 August 1867. Photo © The National Gallery, London.

library, set up in 1870 after the Trustees had purchased Eastlake’s private library of some 2,000 volumes from his widow. Yet Sacchi was never officially employed by the National Gallery. Boxall almost succeeded in 1869 in finding him permanent employment with an associated civil service salary, but ultimately the attempt failed.46 Boxall normally remunerated Sacchi from his own pocket: a book of Sacchi’s travelling expenses notes that between September 1866 and August 1867, he was paid monthly by Boxall from his own private income. Only rarely was Sacchi paid from National Gallery funds. There is one letter from Boxall to Wornum of 1869, for instance, that discusses appropriate remuneration for those who had acted as agents. Of Sacchi, Boxall remarked: ‘Sacchi too who has saved me through the whole of the journey hitherto from the necessity of any other agent to whom the “qualche cosa” had been annually paid most justly deserves something.’47 Later on, Sacchi also found occasional employment with the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum), an institution that made use of agents – or ‘art referees’ as they were called – in similar ways to the National Gallery. Indeed, extant reports by the art referees list not only the works of art inspected but also names of owners and dealers, prices paid and provenance information.48 For instance, according to the institutional records, Edward Rutter, who traded as a dealer in Paris, acted for the South Kensington Museum in that city, both at auctions and in negotiations with dealers.49 Another active dealer for the museum, specifically in the area of Spanish decorative arts, was Juan F. Riano y Montera (1829–1901), a professor of art history, who was based in Madrid, and who was given the position of ‘Professional Art Referee in Spain’ in May 1870 on the recommendation of Layard, the aforementioned Trustee of the National Gallery, who was also the British Minister in Madrid at the time.50

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Interestingly, Riano published pioneering books on Spanish art for the South Kensington Museum in the 1870s, and lent it his own collection of Spanish ceramics and glass for an important exhibition there in 1892, some objects from which were subsequently bought by the host museum. These broad-ranging activities and the relationship of trust and respect that was thereby developed, set Riano’s involvement with the museum at South Kensington on a different plane from that of the art agents associated with the National Gallery, with the possible exception of Mündler. The National Gallery’s third director, Frederic Burton, also travelled to Europe: he went to Italy almost every year between 1878 and 1885, apart from 1879, when he visited Germany, and in 1877, when he visited Holland.51 He never made use of a designated travelling agent in the way that his predecessors had done, although there was some thought that Morelli’s protégé Jean-Paul Richter, among others, could usefully have been employed in a position similar to Mündler’s or Sacchi’s. Instead, Burton relied on a larger network of experts, each with a different expertise, which reflected the growing specialization within the developing discipline of art history.52 One area in which Burton did much to build up the National Gallery’s holdings was the previously neglected art of medieval Siena. Burton was greatly assisted in this particular endeavour by Charles Fairfax Murray (1849–1919), a painter turned dealer. Burton bought seven of the many early Sienese paintings that Murray offered, while Murray, a generous donor to public collections, gifted Pietro Lorenzetti and workshop’s Saint Sabinus before the Roman Governor of Tuscany to the National Gallery in 1882 (Murray’s first public gift and his own attribution).53 In relation to expanding other areas of the national collection, Burton received advice from a number of other important dealers, a few of whom had had dealings with his predecessors. One such was Giovanni Baslini (1817–87), the leading Milanese dealer of the period, with business associations with Molteni, and who had been friendly with Eastlake. It was through Baslini that Burton purchased in 1876 portraits by Moretto and Giovanni Battista Moroni from the Fenaroli Collection,54 which Eastlake had deemed eligible for purchase, as well as Solario’s A Man with a Pink, a negotiation started under Boxall.55 Although Burton continued to keep a firm eye on European markets, he also started to attend seriously to the local one. This was partly because ever more stringent export laws in continental Europe made it harder and harder to acquire eligible Old Masters there. Another decisive factor was that a new source of supply was emerging in Britain. Due to a domestic economic crisis, an increasing number of Old Master paintings from British aristocratic collections started to appear on the market, their sales facilitated by the 1882–90 Settled Land Acts. An expanding market of this kind induced resourceful British dealers, such as Agnew’s, as Pezzini’s chapter in this volume demonstrates, to turn their attention away from historical or modern British art, areas in which they had built their reputations, towards uncharted territory of dealing in the Old Masters. Simultaneously, the National Gallery started to form new relationships with various of these London-based art dealerships, notably Agnew’s, through whom it began to buy important works from 1884, increasingly at public auction in London. This approach proved an additional fruitful avenue for acquiring European Old Masters to the by now well-established path traced in this chapter of securing such deals in situ abroad, often through private treaty, frequently utilizing local agents.

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Conclusion Reviewing the history of agents at London’s National Gallery as a whole, one might have thought that the story would have followed a consistent developmental model in which, for instance, the Gallery’s changing character as a museum from the 1850s led, inevitably, to a greater utilization of permanently employed agents working on behalf of a director to seek out and obtain particular works of art to help plug gaps in an evolving historical collection. The employment of Mündler on a five-year contract with the possibility of renewal thereafter, can certainly be explained in relation to such a view, and certain other agents have been discussed who helped various directors after Eastlake’s time, but these were all individuals who worked for the Gallery on an ad hoc basis and very part-time or whose commitment as exclusive agents of the institution was minimal. Indeed after Mündler, the employment of agents by the Gallery remained a happenstance affair, dependent upon the personal connections of a particular director, and upon the ability of the director to secure funds to pay for an agent or even upon his own ability to pay the agent himself. The coincidental nature of much of the process of finding suitable agents and the ever-problematic matter of financial support may be offered as two reasons why the National Gallery never developed a permanent commitment to the employment of art agents. But broader historical circumstances played a part, too, not least the novel modus operandi that came into effect towards the end of the century, whereby Old Master paintings were acquired through Londonbased dealerships which invested increasingly heavily in that particular market.

Notes 1

2 3 4

5 6

See Gregory Martin, ‘The Founding of the National Gallery in London’, Connoisseur 187 (December 1974): 278–93; Jonathan Conlin, The Nation’s Mantlepiece: A History of the National Gallery (London: Pallas Athene, 2006); and Christopher Whitehead, The Public Art Museum in Nineteenth Century Britain: The Development of the National Gallery (London: Routledge, 2005). For a list of the National Gallery’s acquisitions between 1824 and 1854, see David Robertson, Sir Charles Eastlake and the Victorian Art World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), Appendix IV, 292–8. Archives of the National Gallery (NGA), NG1/2, Board Minutes, f.113: meeting of 3 February 1851, and ibid., f.206: meeting of 13 April 1853. See Charles Sebag-Montefiore and James Stourton, The British as Art Collectors: From the Tudors to the Present (London: Scala, 2012), 12. See Susanna Avery-Quash, ‘Hudson, Eastlake e la National Gallery di Londra’, in Sir James Hudson nel Risorgimento italiano, ed. Edoardo Greppi and Enrica Pagella (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2012), 257–85. See Judy Egerton, National Gallery Catalogues: The British School (London: National Gallery, 1998), 388–99. See Susanna Avery-Quash and James Carleton Paget, ‘The Artist as Director at the National Gallery, London: Intention or Happenstance?’, in Artists Work in Museums: Histories, Interventions, Subjectivities, ed. Matilda Pye and Linda Sandino (Bath: Wunderkammer Press, 2013), 33–47.

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8 9

10

11 12 13 14

15 16

17 18

19

20

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NG213; see NGA, NG5/64/14: letter from Samuel Woodburn to the National Gallery Trustees, 3 March 1847, which reveals Woodburn’s assured opinion about attribution, price and provenance. NG196; see NGA, NG1/1, Board Minutes, ff.284–5: meeting of 2 February 1846. NGA, NG1/1, Board Minutes, ff.232–7: meeting of 19 February 1844. Also two letters of February 1844, which Samuel Woodburn sent to Eastlake and which were read out at the Trustees’ meeting of 4 March 1844. See Robertson, Eastlake, 88–90. NGA, NG5/56/8: letter from Samuel Woodburn regarding his brother‘s commission in Italy on behalf of the National Gallery Trustees, 3 May 1844; and NG5/56/10: letter from Samuel Woodburn offering to explain his proposals to the Trustees, 6 May 1844. Also NGA, NG5/61/10: letter from Samuel Woodburn with suggested conditions under which his brother might be employed by the National Gallery, 4 November 1845; and NG5/59/1: letter from Samuel Woodburn respecting his brother’s engagement by the Trustees to obtain pictures, 12 January 1846. NGA, NG1/1, Board Minutes, f.287. See NGA, NG1/1, Board Minutes, f.120: meeting of 4 April 1851, and ibid., NG1/2, ff.122–6, 148: meetings of 16 April and 5 May 1851. NGA, NG1/2, Board Minutes, ff.131–2: meeting of 14 July 1851. See NGA, NG1/2, Board Minutes, ff.154–5, 168–9: meetings of 5 April and 15 May 1852, respectively. See Robertson, Eastlake, 125, who notes that Edward Chaney and William Spence ‘appear to have been the Trustees’ first unofficial consultants living abroad’. See NGA, NG1/2, Board Minutes, ff.163–4, 166–8, 170–2, 174. NG224. See Barbara Pezzini, ‘Art Sales and Attributions: The 1852 National Gallery Acquisition of The Tribute Money by Titian’, Journal of Art Historiography 17 (December 2017), online at: https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/ pezzini.pdf (accessed 25 May 2020). See NGA, NG5/93/5: letter from the Treasury to the National Gallery Trustees, 31 July 1852. See Susanna Avery-Quash, ‘The Growth of Interest in Collecting Early Italian Art with Special Reference to Paintings in the National Gallery’, in Dillian Gordon, National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century: Italian Paintings, Volume I (London: National Gallery, 2003), xxiv–xliv, esp. xxvii. For the National Gallery’s acquisitions policy of the period, see Charlotte Klonk, ‘The National Gallery and Its Public’, in Consumers and Luxury: Consumer Culture in Europe, 1650–1850, ed. Maxine Berg and Helen Clifford (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 228–51. For a list of ‘Additions during Eastlake’s Directorship, 1855–1865’, see Robertson, Eastlake, Appendix V, 298–323. See the Treasury warrant dated 2 July 1855. The subject of employing an agent was raised just once in the Select Committee on the National Gallery of 1853 in a witness statement by William Dyce of 30 June 1853. His answer to that topic (p. 530, para. 7451) was: ‘I should be inclined to divide the staff into permanent officers, and officers who may be occasionally employed. Whether the appointment of these occasional officers should be a permanent one, and the payment made to them only occasional, or whether the parties should be appointed occasionally, and paid when they are employed, I think is a matter of very little importance.’ The pair first met in June 1845, when Mündler invited Eastlake ‘to view a Correggio at his lodgings’ (the matter was not pursued). Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle’s name had been mooted as the National Gallery’s Travelling Agent in 1855 but rejected on the

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27

28

29

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31 32 33

Old Masters Worldwide grounds that he was exiled from the very country he would need to travel around for his job. See Joseph Archer Crowe, Reminiscences of Thirty-Five Years of My Life (London: John Murray, 1895), 236–7. See Tancred Borenius, ‘Eastlake’s Travelling Agent’, The Burlington Magazine 83 (1943): 215. Also Robertson, Eastlake, esp. 162–82. NGA, NG17/1, description of the duties of the ‘Travelling Agent’, copied from the Treasury Minute, 27 March 1855, re-constituting the establishment of the National Gallery. Also NGA, NG5/114/5, Treasury Warrant, 2 July 1855, for Otto Mündler to act as Travelling Agent to the Trustees and Director of the National Gallery. NGA, NG1/4, Board Minutes, f.6: meeting of 12 November 1855. See Donata Levi ‘ “Let agents be sent to all the cities in Italy”: British Public Museums and the Italian Art Market in the Mid-Nineteenth Century’, in Victorian and Edwardian Responses to the Italian Renaissance, ed. John E. Law and Lene ØstermarkJohansen (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 33–53; Flaminia Gennari Santori, ‘I Musei e il Mercato dell’Arte’, in Il Rinascimento Italiano in Europa, ed. Marcello Fantoni (Treviso: Angelo Colla, 2005), 489–510. See Report from the Select Committee on the National Gallery: Together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, Appendix and Index (London: HMSO, 1853), 756: Appendix, No. VII, ‘Answers to Queries on the Galleries and Museums of Fine Arts in Different Countries’, answers to questions 22 and 24. Answers came from Belgium, Berlin, Florence, Munich, Naples and Rome. Additional answers came from The Hague, St Petersburg, Amsterdam, Haarlem and Leiden, but being received too late to be inserted in the main appendix, these responses were printed as a separate Appendix, in ibid., No. XXII, 833–41. Furthermore, ‘When works of art are to be sold by public sale, the Committee may depute one or more of its members to inspect them, to whom one of the “Commissaires Experts” is always added.’ A similar situation pertained in Florence, where the Government made purchases ‘on the proposition of the director, who strengthens his opinion by the advice of persons skilled in the fine arts’. In both Naples and Rome, it was usual practice to purchase works of art on the recommendation of relevant committees. The only museums to come near to what Eastlake was pioneering in London were those at Leiden and St Petersburg. The answer came back from Leiden: ‘the principal treasures . . . have been acquired by special agents in foreign countries, paid by the Government’, while the answer from St Petersburg noted that agents were sometimes sent abroad but that there was no fixed annual sum for that task. See Jaynie Anderson, ‘Introduction to the Travel Diary of Otto Mündler’, in The Travel Diary of Otto Mündler, ed. Carol Togneri Dowd (London: Walpole Society, 1985), 27–8. See Susanna Avery-Quash, ‘ “The Happy Tour”: An Introduction to Eastlake’s Notebooks Compiled on His Foreign Travels’, in The Travel Notebooks of Sir Charles Eastlake, ed. Susanna Avery-Quash, I (London: Walpole Society, 2011), 1–46. In Eastlake’s case, he had started keeping a travel notebook as early as 1828, when he was an aspiring art student living in Rome. NG280 and NG281, respectively. Also NGA, NG1/4, Board Minutes, f.43: meeting of 7 July 1856. The Lombard-Baldi Collection acquisitions are NG564–NG698. See NGA, NG1/4, Board Minutes, f.106. NG294; NGA, NG1/4, Board Minutes, ff.55, 79, 95, 141, 143, 145.

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34 See Susanna Avery-Quash and Julie Sheldon, Art for the Nation: The Eastlakes and the Victorian Art World (London: National Gallery Publications, 2011), 175–7. 35 NGA, NG1/4, Board Minutes, f.145: meeting of 17 December 1858; Also NGA, NGA2/3/3/42: letter from Eastlake to Wornum, 22 August 1858. 36 NGA, NG1/4, Board Minutes, f.145: meeting of 17 December 1858. Also ibid., f.239: meeting of 19 November 1860, which confirmed the former arrangements ‘provided the expense incurred be within the limit of the vote for travelling expenses’; in the margin, ‘£650’ has been written in pencil. It should be noted that the vote for paying art agents was temporarily suspended in 1872; see NGA, NG1/5, Board Minutes, f.19. 37 See NGA, NG1/4, Board Minutes, f.337: meeting of 12 December 1864, at which Mündler’s report was read. 38 On Gualandi, see Avery-Quash, ‘Travel Notebooks of Eastlake’, II, 57; http:// letteraturaartistica.blogspot.com/2019/11/michelangelo-gualandi15.html. The Gualandi–Eastlake correspondence, including over 100 letters between the director and his agent, has recently been rediscovered by Giovanni Mazzaferro in the Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg, Frankfurt am Main. 39 NGA, NGA2/3/3/65: letter from Eastlake to Wornum, 14 September 1859. See Avery-Quash, ‘Travel Notebooks of Eastlake’, II, 65. 40 See Avery-Quash, ‘Travel Notebooks of Eastlake’, II, 48, 66, respectively. 41 Susanna Avery-Quash and Silvia Davoli, ‘ “Boxall is interested only in the Great Masters . . . Well, we’ll see about that!” William Boxall, Federico Sacchi and Cremonese Art at the National Gallery’, Journal of the History of Collections 28, no. 2 (2016): 237 n. 26. 42 Quoted in Frederick Mario Fales and Bernard Hickey, eds, Austen Henry Layard tra l‘Oriente e Venezia (Rome: L‘Erma di Bretschneider, 1987), 122. 43 On Orlandi, see Avery-Quash, ‘Travel Notebooks of Eastlake’, II, 67. 44 See Avery-Quash and Davoli, ‘William Boxall, Federico Sacchi’, 227–8. 45 NG806, NG803 and NG804, respectively. 46 Avery-Quash and Davoli,‘William Boxall, Federico Sacchi’, 228. Also NGA, NGA1/17/14, letter from the Treasury authorizing the appointment of Federico Sacchi in Boxall‘s service, 12 July 1869. 47 Avery-Quash and Davoli, ‘William Boxall, Federico Sacchi’, 238 n. 41. 48 Crucial primary sources, preserved in the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, are: the file of ‘Purchases by Officers Abroad’, which starts in 1861 with ‘Mr Cole’s Purchases in Italy, 1861’; the first Director Sir Henry Cole’s Diaries; two of Cole’s surviving travel Journals; and letters to Cole from his colleagues Richard Redgrave and John Charles Robinson. For the contemporary situation at the British Museum, see Dora Thornton and Jeremy Warren, ‘The British Museum’s Michelangelo Acquisitions and the Casa Buonarroti’, Journal of the History of Collections 10, no. 1 (1998): 2–29. 49 See Clive Wainwright, edited for publication by Charlotte Gere, ‘The Making of the South Kensington Museum III: Collecting Abroad’, Journal of the History of Collections 14, no. 1 (2002): 45–61, esp. 46–7. 50 See Marjorie Trusted, ‘In all cases of difference adopt Signor Riano’s view: Collecting Spanish Decorative Arts at South Kensington in the Late Nineteenth Century’, Journal of the History of Collections 18, no. 2 (2006): 225–36. 51 See NGA, NG1/6, Board Minutes: meeting of 5 March 1889, when the travelling expenses were reduced from £100 to £40; and ibid., 7 March 1890, when a letter from the Treasury, dated 6 January 1890, was discussed. The letter proposed that, henceforth, travelling expenses should be derived from the purchase grant.

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52 See Elena Greer, ‘Sir Frederic Burton and the Rosebery Minute: The Directorship of the National Gallery, London, in the Late Nineteenth Century’ (PhD dissertation, University of Nottingham, 2017), esp. 118–21. 53 NG1113. See Paul Tucker, ed., A Connoisseur and His Clients: The Correspondence of Charles Fairfax Murray with Frederic Burton, Wilhelm Bode and Julius Meyer, 1867–1914 (London: Walpole Society, 2017), 4–9, 16–17. 54 The pictures in question are: Giovanni Battista Moroni, A Knight with His Jousting Helmet (’Il Cavaliere dal Piede Ferito’, Conte Faustino Avogadro(?)), NG1022 and Moretto da Brescia, Portrait of a Man, NG1025. See NGA, NG1/5, Board Minutes, ff.77–8. 55 NG923.

Part Two

Gaining International Visibility and Expertise, 1850–1909

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Old Masters versus Modern Art in Parisian Auctions Léa Saint-Raymond

Many essays, in this book and elsewhere, describe the roles that individual collectors, art dealers and intermediaries assumed in the art trade during the long nineteenth century but little is still known about the market on a macroscopic level. This is, in part, a problem of sources: there is no comprehensive database for nineteenth-century auction catalogues and the records in the Getty Provenance Index®, although important, stop at 1820.1 This chapter seeks to fill this lacuna by investigating in its entirety the Parisian auction market from the early nineteenth century until the interwar period in the following century, with a particular focus on Old Master sales. For the dataset, all the existing catalogues of Parisian auction sales for paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture were collected and transcribed.2 For each work of art under review, its title, date of execution, provenance, bibliography and description were recorded and whether or not it had been reproduced in the catalogue, the names of the auctioneer(s) and expert(s), and the date and place of its sale. The auction catalogues were then matched with the minutes or procès-verbaux of the sales. The procès-verbaux, held at the Archives de Paris, are legal documents written by a clerk during the auction, and are immensely valuable for the art historian. Contrary to the annotated catalogues, which are likely to be incomplete and sometimes contain inaccurate information, the minutes are the only documents that give a comprehensive and accurate view of the auction, providing the names and addresses of sellers and buyers and the hammer prices of the sold works. Because of the overwhelming number of auction sales that took place throughout the period, samples were taken from the available catalogues and their associated procès-verbaux – in selected years. The study starts with the year 1831, when the total revenue of the Parisian auctioneers first became available; then 1850 was tackled, and thereafter samples in twenty-five-year blocks were taken. In total, 63 Parisian auction catalogues were collected for 1831; 67 for 1850; 143 for 1875; 107 for 1900; and 283 for 1925. The total number of works sold at Parisian auctions in each of these selected years was high: 5,738 works of art were sold in 1831; 6,689 in 1851; 11,586 in 1875; 8,137 in 1900; and as many as 24,724 in 1925. These numbers, which have been made available through a Dataverse file, already tell a story of remarkable growth.3 More 101

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importantly, this data allows a unique analysis of the auction market in Paris between 1831 and 1925. This chapter analyses that data, identifying significant dealers and agents, and demonstrating the way in which tastes in collecting changed. Modern art surpassed, in quantity and price, the Old Masters in Parisian auctions in the period up to 1912, but then was superseded by an interest in the Old Masters, with the demand for French eighteenth-century painting, in particular, surpassing that for modern pictures with a vengeance during the post-1912 period.

What was Sold at Auction? ‘Old Masters’ is not an independent category in the Parisian auction market of this period, when the auction catalogues were simply entitled ‘tableaux et dessins anciens’ (old pictures and drawings). The distinction between old and modern works of art (anciens and modernes) only gained relevance in the late nineteenth century (Fig. 5.1a). In 1831, only 22 per cent of the works that were sold at auction in Paris were classified as ‘old’ or ‘modern’ in the catalogues; that number increased to more than half in 1850, and reached 75 per cent in 1925. This decrease in ‘unspecified’ works of art correlates with the increasing share of ‘modern’ ones: from 40.9 per cent in 1850 to 64.1 per cent in 1925 (Fig. 5.1b). The emergence of the ‘old’ versus ‘modern’ nomenclature also coincided with the decline of the classification in national schools. Common practice in the eighteenth century had been to divide works of art according to the so-called

Fig. 5.1a Number of works of art sold at auction in Paris, 1831–1925 according to their classification in the sale catalogues (modern/old/unspecified). Compiled by the author.

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Fig. 5.1b Share of works of art sold at auction in Paris, 1831–1925 according to their classification in the sale catalogues (paintings/graphic arts/sculptures/unspecified works of art). Compiled by the author.

three schools (les trois écoles), namely the Italian, French and the Dutch and Flemish (or Northern) schools.4 This system was still in use in 1831, since 25.5 per cent of the works of art were attributed to a specific school, but this figure fell to 8.4 per cent in 1850 and settled around a 12 per cent level in 1900 and 1925. A deliberately extended and experimental definition of Old Masters, i.e. marking as ‘Old Masters’ all the works that were not expressly categorized as modern in the auction catalogue was therefore adopted, after it was realized that most of the ‘unspecified’ lots were by deceased artists.5 Within this sector of the market, three important changes occurred in the period under review. First, while sculpture remained a miniscule proportion of sales (hovering at 1 per cent of the total), the supremacy of paintings was challenged at the turn of the twentieth century by the increase in the number of drawings which were included in sales in the French capital.6 Two Parisian exhibitions are likely to have played a key role in shaping the growing taste for drawings: the 1879 exhibition of Old Master drawings at the École des Beaux-Arts, and the exhibition of Old Master decorative and ornamental drawings at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, in 1880, both often referred to in the 1900 and 1925 auction catalogues.7 Second, the late nineteenth century witnessed greater caution in relation to attributions.8 This can be linked to the strengthening of French legislation, including the passing on 9 February 1895 of a law on artistic fraud, incriminating any practice of falsification and counterfeit and rendering the auctioneers and experts liable for the attribution of works of art they handled.9 A final substantial change in the Old Master market in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century

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Fig. 5.2 Changes in the quantities of works by the main national schools in 1850, 1900 and 1925. Compiled by the author.

concerned the increase in the number of historical French pictures sold at auction and a concomitant decrease in sales of Dutch and Flemish art of the past (Fig. 5.2).10

Taste and Opportunity The study of the procès-verbaux permits a fresh analysis of Old Master auctions in Paris.11 The findings for the long nineteenth century are similar to what Patrick Michel observed for the late eighteenth century.12 They show that in Parisian auctions, the hierarchy of taste between ‘the three schools’ remained unchanged: Dutch and Flemish works were still the most coveted with the French School coming second, whilst the Italian pictures were valued less highly than the other two groupings.13 In 1850, Northern paintings were purchased at an average price higher than French paintings, by 83.6 per cent, and higher than Italian paintings, by 162 per cent. This figure jumped to 90 per cent and 336 per cent by 1875. This gap, however, was reduced in 1900. As Michel suggests, this hierarchy can be correlated to the precision, or lack thereof, of attributions.14 During the nineteenth century, 67.3 per cent of the Dutch and Flemish works were identified as being created ‘by’ a particular artist: 59.2 per cent for paintings

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of the French School and 41.1 per cent for the Italian ones, respectively. As authenticity was much valued in the Parisian market, the more reliable Netherlandish works constituted a safer investment than the Italian ones, a difference in average prices emerged that can be explained by a risk premium.15 The supremacy of the Dutch and Flemish paintings within the Old Master auction market in Paris may also be connected with the emergence of more systematic references to specialist literature in the auction catalogues. In 1831, the most quoted reference was the biographical dictionary of Flemish, German and Dutch artists, published by Jean-Baptiste Descamps in 1753, but from 1850 onwards, it was replaced by the catalogue raisonné of John Smith, the dealer whose networking strategies are analysed in this volume by Julia Armstrong-Totten.16 The painters of the Northern school who were most highly esteemed in the period 1831–1925 remained the same as in the late eighteenth century: the Dutch painter Philips Wouwerman and the Flemish David Teniers the younger. While paintings by Wouwerman became scarcer, they still reached the top auction prices.17 The highest hammer price in 1850 was reached by a painting of a view of a military camp by Wouwerman, sold for 25,000 francs by the peintre-expert Ferdinand Laneuville.18 In 1875, the connoisseur Bénédict-Emmanuel Sano (1822–78) purchased a hunting scene for 3,900 francs and, in 1900, the art dealer Charles Sedelmeyer (1837–1925) spent 8,600 francs on a picture depicting a scene of looting.19 Works of art by David Teniers the younger also obtained very high hammer prices in the nineteenth century: the stockbroker Guilhermoz purchased a genre scene by the master for 23,900 francs, in 1875, and Baron de Christiani bought The Temptation of Saint Anthony for 10,000 francs, in 1900.20 Similarly, two Dutch animal and landscape painters secured particularly high prices at auction in the nineteenth century: Adriaen van de Velde and Paulus Potter. Landscape scenes with animals by the latter were highly valued, reaching 19,500 francs in 1850 and 14,500 francs in 1900, prices similar to those achieved by Adriaen van de Velde, who reached the top hammer price for a Northern school painting in 1831.21 By contrast, sales of French paintings of religious or historical subjects underwent more significant changes. Compared to the late eighteenth century, the market for Eustache Le Sueur saw a sharp decline, the prices of his paintings never exceeding 200 francs in this period. The prices of works by Sébastien Bourdon fell too, always selling for less than 600 francs. Conversely, the work of Nicolas Poussin was in the ascent: his Birth of Bacchus, now in the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, Boston (Fig. 5.3), sold for 17,300 francs in 1850, the third highest price of the year after those reached by pictures by Wouwerman and Potter.22 The nineteenth century witnessed a decided growth of interest in eighteenthcentury French painters. For instance, François Boucher’s Portrait of Madame de Pompadour was bought for 17,000 francs in 1875 and his Surprised Nymph (now at the Petit Palais, Paris), was obtained by the collector Charles Vincent Ocampo for 7,500 francs in 1900.23 Jean-Honoré Fragonard was on the rise, too: his watercolours and miniatures were often sold for over 1,000 francs in 1875 and 1900. In 1900, other French eighteenth-century artists secured particularly good prices: at the DeferDumesnil Sale, the banker Arthur-Georges Veil-Picard purchased a drawing by Antoine Watteau for 16,100 francs and the scholar-collector Théodore Reinach

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Fig. 5.3 Nicolas Poussin, The Infant Bacchus Entrusted to the Nymphs of Nysa; The Death of Echo and Narcissus, 1657. Oil on canvas, 122.6 × 180.5 cm. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Cambridge. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

(1860–1928) bought another drawing, The Academy of Painting by Jean Siméon Chardin for 7,500 francs.24 These examples show how the Parisian auction market in the period 1831–1925 depended on what was available for sale. For instance, in 1900, the Defer-Dumesnil Sale put some outstanding drawings on the market by rare artists, such as Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci: their prices soared to 36,000 and 12,500 francs.25 Likewise, the Salamanca Sale in 1875 constituted a golden opportunity to purchase, at a very high price, exceptional paintings by artists such as Peter Paul Rubens, Diego Velázquez and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.26

Modern versus Old Despite the inevitable variations entailed by opportunity, a major, visible phenomenon occurred in late-nineteenth-century Parisian auctions: the modern art market triumphed over the Old Masters. This is in contrast to what was happening in London auctions at the time, where the prices of Old Masters were rapidly rising.27 It is possible to trace this phenomenon clearly in the data provided: the Dataverse file includes a series of statistics for the Parisian auction market and provides the distribution of hammer prices, net of the buyer’s fee and excluding repurchases, for modern art versus Old Master works of art, and, within the latter category, it distinguishes the works ‘by’

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an artist from those ‘attributed to’ and those ‘in the style of ’.28 The graph in Fig. 5.4a summarizes the outcome of this appendix, and computes the gap, in percentage terms, between the average price of Old Master paintings ‘by’ an artist, modern paintings or Old Master paintings ‘attributed to’, and Old Master paintings ‘in the style of ’. In 1831 and 1850, the average hammer price of modern paintings was less than that of Old Master paintings ‘by’ an artist by as much as 51 per cent in 1831, and 26 per cent in 1850. However, in 1875, a reversal had taken place: on average, the hammer price of modern paintings was 39 per cent higher than that for Old Master paintings ‘by’ an artist and this was still the case in 1900, by as much as 18 per cent. By 1850, the most expensive modern paintings had already outpriced the Old Masters, at least in relation to the top 10–25 per cent of prices (Fig. 5.4b).29 In the late nineteenth century, in particular, the differences in the top prices at auction were striking. For instance, in 1900, the highest hammer price was reached by a genre scene painted by Alexandre Gabriel Decamps, purchased by the American firm Knoedler & Co. for 101,000 francs net of the buyer’s fee, whereas the highest hammer price for an Old Master work of art at a Parisian auction was only 36,000 francs for a drawing by Dürer.30 The success of modern paintings over the Old Masters may be explained by the economic notion of ‘risk premium’. These two graphs show that the more uncertain the attribution was (‘by’, ‘attributed to’, ‘in the style of ’), the more significant the decrease in price. Looking at the overall picture presented by hammer prices for modern works, it is clear that between 1850 and 1900, works by artists belonging to the ‘École de 1830’ were

Fig. 5.4a Difference between the average hammer price of Old Master paintings ‘by’ an artist, and the average hammer price of the other categories, 1831–1925. Compiled by the author.

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Fig. 5.4b Difference between the highest hammer price of Old Master paintings ‘by’ an artist, and the highest hammer price of the other categories, 1831–1925. Compiled by the author.

the most valuable.31 The expression ‘École de 1830’ appeared in the late nineteenth century and was a term that became very popular: if in 1900, only one auction catalogue employed it, 39 catalogues were using this category in 1925.32 This school has no clear definition, including as it does landscape painters, orientalists and Romantic artists. It is often confused with the Barbizon School and, like it, was a term coined a posteriori: none of the artists grouped together in this way felt they belonged to one of these ‘schools’ during their lifetime.33 The data accumulated in the research presented here suggests that, in fact, the market gave birth to the expression ‘École de 1830’ or ‘École de Barbizon’, as a designation for the most valued historic artists of the late nineteenth century: Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Jean-François Millet, Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, Eugène Fromentin, Jules Dupré, Théodore Rousseau, Narcisse Diaz de la Peña, Charles-François Daubigny and Constant Troyon. In 1900, the modern French Impressionists joined the ‘École de 1830’ in gaining some of the highest hammer prices: a landscape by Claude Monet was purchased by Boussod, Valadon & Cie for 10,000 francs, a price equivalent to that paid, as noted above, by Baron de Christiani for a painting by David Teniers.34 The triumph of modern art over the Old Masters, however, did not last. In 1912 and 1913, nine tremendous Parisian auction sales – in particular, those of the couturier Jacques Doucet (1853–1929) and of Jonkeer Hendricus Adolphus Steengracht van Duivenvoord (1836–1912), heir of the first curator of the Mauritshuis, The Hague – triggered a revival of taste and visibility for Old Master paintings, drawings and sculptures at auction. In these sales, among the 65 works of art whose hammer price

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Fig. 5.5 Rembrandt van Rijn, The Toilet of Bathsheba, 1643. Oil on wood, 57.2 × 76.2 cm. The Metropolitan Museum, New York.

was over 100,000 francs, only 20 were ‘modern’. The highest hammer price, 1.1 million francs including buyer’s fee, was reached by Rembrandt’s Bathsheba (Fig. 5.5), purchased by the British dealer Joseph Duveen (1869–1939) at the Steengracht Sale, for the American tycoon Benjamin Altman (1840–1913).35 The spectacular rise of the Old Masters continued in the 1925 dataset, both in terms of average (Fig. 5.4a) and top hammer prices (Fig. 5.4b). French eighteenth-century artists, such as Jean Honoré Fragonard, Jean-Antoine Watteau, François Hubert Drouais, Jean-Marc Nattier, Jean Baptiste Perronneau and Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin, were particularly esteemed.36 The fashion for these pictures was fostered by many factors: by the development of art history as an academic discipline;37 by collectors’ preferences, such as Jacques Doucet or Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, who published L’Art du XVIII e siècle;38 by temporary exhibitions on these masters mounted by both public museums;39 and by art dealers. For instance, art dealer Georges Petit (1856–1920) organized a key exhibition in 1907, dedicated to Chardin and Fragonard, and another one in 1908, which displayed 100 pastels from the eighteenth century.40 Likewise, the Parisian dealer Nathan Wildenstein (1851–1934) conducted a real ‘charm offensive’ on behalf of French Rococo painting within his American clientele. As his grandson Daniel wrote: ‘he used to repeat outrageous remarks, hammer shameful lies, on the same issue: “Only French art is beautiful, and those who bought British art are fools.” ’41

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The Protagonists Looking at the main protagonists of the market, the same overall picture emerges as the one detected by Charlotte Guichard for the late eighteenth century:42 the nineteenthcentury auction market continued to be a ‘dealers’ market,’ highly concentrated in the hands of a few major Parisian dealers. In 1831, the most active purchasers were peintresexperts, painters who were also very active as dealers, namely Edme-Laurent DurandDuclos (1771–1846) and the Pérignon family. Mrs Hazard and Berthon fils purchased frequently, too, but less than the expert Claude Schroth (d. 1858), who happened to be the most important buyer in 1850, after Laneuville. The small world of the auction market was based to some extent on continuity within families. In 1850, the stationer and dealer Jean Marie Fortuné Durand (1800–65) was the seventh-highest purchaser at auction, and his son, the famous art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel (1831–1922) was the top buyer in 1875 and the second highest in 1900, after the dealers Arnold & Tripp. Likewise, Francis Petit (1818–77) and his son Georges Petit (1856–1920) both held third place in this ranking in 1875 and 1900, respectively. In the late nineteenth century and in the 1925 dataset, the auction market was even more concentrated in the hands of certain art dealers, notably Nathan Wildenstein (1851–1934), Paul Durand-Ruel, Édouard Jonas (1883–1961), Jos Hessel (1859–1942), Franz Kleinberger (1848– c. 1936), Petit and Roland Knoedler (1856–1932).43 Interestingly, the most important purchasers – dealers or private collectors – made targeted purchases. In 1850, Laneuville, the stockbroker Lombart, and three as yet unidentified individuals, named Julien, Felix and Fromevin, were focusing their purchases on Old Masters; in 1875, the Parisian art dealer Alexis Eugéne Detrimont (b. 1825), the banker Frédéric Pillet-Will (1837–1911), the Marquis d’Abzac and, in 1900, the print dealer Auguste Danlos (1839–c. 1928), and the art dealers Kleinberger and Charles Sedelmeyer (1837–1925) were also concentrating their purchases on Old Master paintings and drawings, and then Nathan Wildenstein (1851–1934), Hector Beeche, Paul and Marcel Jonas and Paul Rosenberg (1881–1959) joined them in this area of activity in 1925. In his advertisements, Kleinberger stated very clearly that his gallery was dedicated to the Old Masters, in particular to the Dutch and Flemish school.44 Conversely, in 1850, Schroth and Jean Marie Fortuné Durand had specialized in modern works of art, as did the Parisian art dealer Alexis Febvre (1810–81) and the London-based Max Hollender of the Hanover Gallery45 in 1875. The most important buyers in 1900 – the art dealers Arnold, Georges Petit, Boussod, Valadon & Co, E. Le Roy and Bernheim Jeune – were stated specialists in modern art, as were Jos Hessel and Eugène Druet (1867–1916) in 1925. Interestingly, Roland Knoedler and Paul DurandRuel appeared as an exception: they purchased a mixture of Old Master and modern paintings, as did the dealer and restorer Haro, in 1900. Regarding the nationality of the protagonists, the actors of the Parisian art market – both buyers and sellers – were, as far as the addresses in the procès-verbaux indicate, generally to be found living in Paris. However, a slight internationalization began in the late nineteenth century, partially due to the French economy blossoming during the Second Empire and the Anglo-French free trade agreement, in 1860, which put an end to protectionism in France, and triggered new profits and opportunities.46 While no

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foreigner bought directly47 at auction in the 1831 and 1850 datasets, the Parisian auction market opened up a bit in the 1875 dataset. The England-based picture dealers Hollender, Prosper Léopold Everard (d. 1881) and, to a lesser extent, Henry Durlacher were particularly active purchasers, but the main foreign buyers of Old Master pictures were dealers from Brussels, namely A. Van Isaker and E. Van Hinsbergh. The critic Arthur Stevens (1825–90) was also a buyer, although more interested in modern paintings. In 1900, the situation remained the same, and dealers from England and Belgium continue to appear as important buyers. Colnaghi purchased seven Old Master drawings at the important Defer-Dumesnil Sale, while Tooth spent more than four times as much as Colnaghi on modern paintings by Charles Jacque and Théodule Ribot.48 The Belgian collectors Hermann Weck and Emile de Coninck acted as both buyers and sellers in the Parisian auction market, mainly for Dutch and Flemish Old Masters. The 1900 data sample shows that Americans became the most important purchasers from abroad; however, they did not purchase at auction directly but through Parisian intermediaries. Maurice Hamman – Knoedler & Co.’s representative in Paris – was the winning bidder of a picture by Meissonier, which sold for 101,000 francs, whereas Paul Durand-Ruel bought four huge canvases by Hubert Robert on behalf of the Art Institute of Chicago, for a total 59,500 francs.49 The internationalization of the Parisian auctions emerges very clearly in the early twentieth century, especially for the Old Master market through the intermediaries of the principal art dealers who had branches in New York, Paris and, sometimes, London – Wildenstein, Knoedler, DurandRuel, Jonas, Reinhardt, Agnew’s, Trotti, Duveen and Kleinberger.50 Unsurprisingly, their Parisian branches were located in the elite neighbourhoods of Faubourg Saint-Honoré and in Place Vendôme, in front of the Ritz Hôtel, with its rich and cosmopolitan clientele.51

Conclusion This chapter has provided a broad picture of trends in the Parisian auction market for modern and Old Master painters derived from data collected and collated in the Dataverse appendix. The results raise three main issues for this field of scholarship. First, it is hoped that this quantitative analysis will form a foundation for art historians, and provide a basis for expanding monographic research into key dealers, collectors and artists of the era. In fact, many questions highlighted by this dataset require further exploration. For instance, who was ‘M. French’, who happened to be an important buyer in 1850? And why did a lesser known artist such as Ferdinand Roybet reach such high auction prices in 1900? More importantly, however, this open-access corpus aims at building new research bridges in a transnational perspective: it could be compared with other macroscopic analyses of non-Parisian art markets, including those analysed by Thomas M. Bayer and John R. Page, Pamela Fletcher and Bénédicte MiyamotoPavot in London.52 Finally, the comparison of the auction market for paintings, drawings and sculptures could be extended to the market of antiques and artefacts. The minutes of Parisian auction sales show a sharp decrease of hammer prices for antiques in the mid-nineteenth century, before bouncing back in the early twentieth century.53

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Likewise, the advent of Asian artefacts gave a new impetus to this sector: ‘ancient’ objects from China or Japan gained high prices and entered museum collections in this period.54 Indeed, the ‘revenge’ of the Old Masters on modern art, around 1912, also corresponded with a re-evaluation of antiques and anquities in general and an upgrading in perceived aesthetic worth and hence of financial worth of what was regarded as ‘old’ among artefacts on sale at Parisian auctions.55

Notes 1

Information concerning private sales that took place between art dealers and collectors, or between collectors, depends on the availability of the archives. There is still much to be done in relation to tapping into primary archival sources. 2 Engravings have been excluded from the dataset: an overview of this market has already been studied by Barthélémy Jobert, ‘Collections et collectionneurs d’estampes en France de 1780 à 1880, d’après les catalogues de vente’, in Collections et marché de l’art en France, 1789–1848, ed. Monica Preti-Hamard and Philippe Sénéchal (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2005), 243–55. 3 The bibliography and reference to the available procès-verbaux can be found online in the Dataverse repository: Léa Saint-Raymond, ‘The Auction Sales of Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures in Paris, 1831–1925: Artists, Hammer Prices and Purchasers’, Harvard Dataverse (2018): online at: https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset. xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/UJHPZH (accessed 18 July 2019). 4 Patrick Michel, Peinture et plaisir, les goûts picturaux des collectionneurs parisiens au XVIIIe siècle (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2010), 156. 5 After identifying the artists through the Benezit dictionary, it was discovered that between 85 and 93 per cent of the unspecified paintings had been created by a deceased artist. 6 Until 1875, paintings represented more than 75 per cent of the items, then 62 per cent in 1900 and 51.7 per cent in 1925. Conversely, the graphic arts increased from 34.3 to 46.4 per cent of the total, from 1900 to 1925. 7 ‘Exposition des dessins de maîtres anciens’, Paris, École des Beaux-Arts, May–June 1879; ‘Exposition des dessins de décoration et d’ornement de maîtres anciens’, Paris, Musée des arts décoratifs, 1880. For the growing appetite for prints and drawings, see Jobert, ‘Collections et collectionneurs d’estampes’, 243–55. 8 Within the Old Master auction market from 1831 through 1875, between 75 and 80 per cent of the works were noted as having been created ‘by’ a specific artist. This proportion fell to 65.2 per cent of the total in 1900, and reached 50.1 per cent in 1925. Conversely, the share of works ‘attributed to’ an artist rose from 4.7 per cent in 1875 to 10.4 per cent of the total in 1925. The share of works ‘of a certain style’ (noted in the catalogues as ‘d’après’, ‘école de’, ‘genre de’ or ‘manière de’) increased from 17.9 to 38.1 per cent in the same period. 9 Laurent Pfister, ‘Le tournant du XXe siècle, berceau des droits contemporains de l’œuvre d’art’, in L’art en mouvement: regards de droit privé, ed. Françoise Labarthe and Alexandra Bensamoun (Paris: Mare & Martin, 2013), 42. 10 Of course, the Old Master market is also a case of supply: the availability of eighteenth-century French works of art was higher, for example, than the one for fourteenth-century Italian pictures.

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11 Saint-Raymond, ‘The Auction Sales’, passim. 12 Michel, Peinture et plaisir, 153–282. 13 This is the case when the auction catalogues mentioned the school and excludes repurchases. These figures are relevant in 1850, 1875 and 1900, when the number of available procès-verbaux is high enough to compute significant average prices for paintings. 14 Michel, Peinture et plaisir, 161. 15 A risk premium is an interest rate that rewards the risk taken by betting on riskier assets compared with safer ones. 16 Jean-Baptiste Descamps, La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandois, 4 vols (Paris: Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1753–64); John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters (London: Smith and Son, 1842). 17 Michel, Peinture et plaisir, 183. 18 Philips Wouwerman, Un Camp, oil on canvas, 51 × 66 cm, whereabouts unknown [Lugt 19607]. The complete references of the auction sales, including the Lugt number, can be found in Saint-Raymond, ‘The Auction Sales’. 19 Philips Wouwerman, Le Chasseur, oil on wood, 27 × 34 cm, whereabouts unknown [Lugt 35282]; Philips Wouwerman, Scènes de pillage, oil on wood, 44 × 63 cm, whereabouts unknown [Lugt 58353]. 20 David Teniers the younger, La lecture de la gazette, oil on wood, 30 × 37 cm, whereabouts unknown [Lugt 35409]; David Teniers the younger, La tentation de saint Antoine, oil on wood, 42 × 55 cm, whereabouts unknown [Lugt 58353]. 21 Paulus Potter, Riche pâturage, oil on wood, 35 × 45 cm, purchashed by Ferdinand Laneuville, whereabouts unknown [Lugt 19607]; Paulus Potter, Paysages et animaux, oil on wood, 30.5 × 23.5 cm, purchased by F. Kleinberger, whereabouts unknown [Lugt 58252]; Adriaen Van de Velde, Un cheval blanc dans une prairie avec deux vaches, unknown medium, whereabouts unknown [Lugt 12683]. 22 Purchased by Ferdinand Laneuville [Lugt 19747]; Nicolas Poussin, Le mariage, étude d’ensemble pour la seconde série des Sacrements, dite Chantelou, ink drawing, 16.9 × 22.9 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, D.A.G., RF2359-recto, bought for 1,600 francs net of the buyer fee [Lugt 58174]. 23 François Boucher, Portrait de Mme la marquise de Pompadour, oil on canvas, 81 × 63 cm, whereabouts unknown [Lugt 35448]; After François Boucher, Le Fleuve Scamandre, oil on canvas, 36 × 56.5 cm, Paris, Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, gift of Charles Vincent Ocampo, PPP2496 [Lugt 58302]. 24 Antoine Watteau, Portrait d’Angelo Constantini dit le Mezzetin, red chalk drawing, 37 × 40 cm, whereabouts unknown [Lugt 58174]; Jean Siméon Chardin, L’Académie de peinture le soir, red chalk drawing, 34 × 44 cm, whereabouts unknown [Lugt 58174]. 25 Albrecht Dürer, Portrait de Jacob Muffet, bourgmestre de Nuremberg/Portrait d’homme, 1517, charcoal drawing, 37 × 28 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, collection Rothschild, 25DR [Lugt 58174]; Leonardo da Vinci, Etude de draperie, bistre drawing, 20.5 × 28 cm, whereabouts unknown [Lugt 58174]. 26 Unfortunately, the procès-verbal of the Salamanca Sale is missing, but the annotated catalogue of the sale, preserved in the library of the Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA), Paris, mentions seven prices above 10,000 francs. 27 Thomas M. Bayer and John R. Page, The Development of the Art Market in England: Money as Muse, 1730–1900 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011). 28 Saint-Raymond, ‘The Auction Sales’, 1925.

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29 However, in some cases, Old Master paintings reached unprecedented record prices as well. For instance, in 1852, at the Soult Sale in Paris, The Immaculate Conception by Murillo was sold at auction for 568,000 francs to the Louvre, for a while remaining the most expensive picture in the world. See Barbara Pezzini, ‘Art Sales and Attributions: The 1852 National Gallery Acquisition of The Tribute Money by Titian’, Journal of Art Historiography 17 (December 2017), online at: https://arthistoriography.files. wordpress.com/2017/11/pezzini.pdf (accessed 25 May 2020). 30 Alexandre Gabriel Decamps, Enfants effrayés à la vue d’une chienne, c. 1830, oil on canvas, 94 × 139 cm, Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California, Mildred Anna Williams Collection. [Lugt 58177] 31 Saint-Raymond, ‘The Auction Sales’. 32 [Lugt 58301]. 33 Emmanuel Bénézit, La vie et l’œuvre des grands peintres anciens et modernes (Paris: E. Gaillard, 1909), 259; Chantal Georgel, La forêt de Fontainebleau, un atelier grandeur nature (Paris: Réunion des musé es nationaux (RMN), 2007), 163. 34 Claude Monet, Les glaçons/La Seine à Bennecourt, hiver, 1893, oil on canvas, 60 × 100 cm, purchased by Boussod, Valadon & Co, Private Collection, W1333 [Lugt 58287]. 35 [Lugt 72900]. This work came up for public auction in Paris, on 25 March 1841, at the Héris Sale and sold for 7,880 francs [Lugt 16137, no. 6]. It is currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acc. no. 14.40.651. 36 Saint-Raymond, ‘The Auction Sales’. 37 Michela Passini, L’œil et l’archive: une histoire de l’histoire de l’art (Paris: La Découverte, 2017). On the emergence of art history books, see Ségolène Le Men, ‘Un art sans frontière? De 1860 à 1914’, in Histoire de la vie intellectuelle en France, tome II , ed. Christophe Charle and Laurent Jeanpierre (Paris: Seuil, 2017), 499–524. 38 Chantal Georgel, Jacques Doucet: collectionneur et mécène (Paris: Les Arts Décoratifs/ Institut national d’histoire de l’art, 2016); Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, L’Art du XVIIIe siècle (Paris: G. Charpentier, 1881–2). 39 See the 1910 Berlin Exhibition: ‘Exposition d’œuvres de l’art français au XVIIIe siècle’, Berlin, Royal Academy of Arts, January–March 1910. This aspect was developed by Francis Haskell, The Ephemeral Museum: Old Masters Paintings and the Rise of the Art Exhibition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000). 40 ‘Exposition Chardin Fragonard’, Paris, Galeries Georges Petit, June–July 1907. ‘Exposition de cent pastels du XVIIIe siècle’, Paris, Galeries Georges Petit, May–June 1908. 41 Daniel Wildenstein and Yves Stavridès, Marchands d’art (Paris: Plon, 1999), 33. 42 Saint-Raymond, ‘The Auction Sales’; Charlotte Guichard, ‘Small Worlds: The Auction Economy in the Late Eighteenth-Century Paris Art Market’, in Moving Pictures: Intra-European Trade in Images, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Neil de Marchi and Sophie Raux (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 243–4. 43 See the list in Saint-Raymond, ‘The Auction Sales’. More information on the Parisian art dealers can be found in Julien Cavero, Félicie de Maupeou and Léa Saint-Raymond, eds, GeoMAP: Géographie du marché de l’art parisien, 2017, online at: https://docs.lib. purdue.edu/artlas/vol4/iss1/6/ (accessed 25 May 2020). 44 Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot, nos. 144–5 (24–25 May 1900): 4. 45 Pamela Fletcher, ed., London Gallery Project, online at: http://19thc-artworldwide.org/ fletcher/london-gallery/ (accessed 25 May 2020). 46 Gabrielle Cadier, ‘Les conséquences du traité de 1860 sur le commerce francobritannique’, Histoire, économie et société 7, no. 3 (1988): 355–80.

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47 The auction minutes of sales mention only the bidder: whenever a Parisian dealer bought a work of art at auction on behalf of a foreign protagonist, the minutes kept the name of the real buyer secret, displaying only the name of the Parisian bidder. 48 The drawings acquired were two by Adriaen van Ostade, two by Jan van Goyen, and the others by Nicolas Lancret, Jacob van Ruisdael and Aert van der Neer, for a total of 3.510 francs, net of buyer fee: lot nos 71, 72, 82, 84, 85, 99 and 169 [Lugt 58174]. 49 Hubert Robert, The Old Temple, The Obelisk, The Landing Place and The Fountains, 1787/8, oil on canvases, 255 × 223 cm each, Chicago, The Art Institute, gift of Adolphus C. Bartlett, Clarence Buckingham, Richard T. Crane and William G. Hibbard, 1900.382, 1900.383, 1900.384 and 1900.385, respectively [Lugt 58299]. 50 See Cynthia Saltzman, Old Masters, New World: America’s Raid on Europe’s Great Pictures (London: Penguin Books, 2008); Léa Saint-Raymond, Le pari des enchères: le lancement de nouveaux marchés artistiques à Paris, 1830–1939 (Paris: Classiques Garnier, forthcoming). 51 See the list in Saint-Raymond, ‘The Auction Sales’. More information on the Parisian art dealers can be found in GeoMAP: Géographie du marché de l’art parisien. 52 For example, the Getty Research Institute has published two main datasets: the Sales Catalogues and the Dealers Stock Books datasets, online at: https://www.getty.edu/ research/tools/provenance/search.html (accessed 25 May 2020); Bayer and Page, The Development of the Art Market in England, passim; London Gallery Project, ed. Pamela Fletcher, online at: http://19thc-artworldwide.org/fletcher/london-gallery/ (accessed 25 May 2020); Bénédicte Miyamoto-Pavot, ‘ “A Pretty General Taste for Pictures”: The Social Construction of Artistic Value in Eighteenth-Century London, 1685–1805’ (PhD dissertation, Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7, 2011). 53 Saint-Raymond, Le pari des enchères. 54 Léa Saint-Raymond, ‘La création sémantique de la valeur: les ventes aux enchères d’objets chinois à Paris, 1858–939’, in Chine France – Europe Asie: itinéraire de concepts, ed. Michel Espagne and Li Hongtu (Paris: Éditions de la rue d’Ulm, 2018), 217–39. 55 Saint-Raymond, Le pari des enchères.

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Agnew’s: From Modern Art to Old Masters Barbara Pezzini

The surge of the Old Master market in London in the last quarter of the nineteenth century is a phenomenon that has been observed, both quantitatively and qualitatively, by many scholars.1 Its rapid development has often been identified with a growth in supply following the dispersal of the mobile assets belonging to the British aristocracy, a dispersal spurred on by an agricultural crisis and increases in taxation, and by the simplification of the previously complicated transfers of aristocratic property with new conveyancing legislation, such as the 1882–90 Settled Land Acts.2 The other side of the question, how such a sudden growth in supply met with an equally increased demand, has also been explained by a convergence of factors, which include the development of museums in Europe and the United States, the establishment of art history as a discipline in universities, and, not least, the newly voracious appetite of private collectors for the art of the past, a type of art increasingly especially coveted by wealthy entrepreneurs, the ‘plutocrats’ of the United States.3 This chapter examines the Old Master trade within these decades of transformation, and enriches its understanding by analysing the role that art dealers played in this context. It also considers, like Léa Saint-Raymond’s chapter, the relationship that the Old Master market had with the trade in modern art, although here the focus is on the situation in Britain rather than France. By taking Agnew’s – modern art dealers who increasingly traded in Old Masters – as a case study, this chapter highlights the strategies that trade professionals could employ to penetrate, stimulate and control the Old Master market, and illustrates how one firm of dealers aimed not only to satisfy their buyers’ needs, but also strove to stimulate a continued increase in demand. It is argued here that the connection between private buyers and public institutions was a crucial aspect of this shift, and this interconnection between the private and public contributed to create a thriving hub for the commerce of Old Master paintings in London at the end of the nineteenth century. The study of the London-based art dealers Agnew’s is a useful case to exemplify the mutations of the art market, as the firm changed its trading patterns in the timeframe under review: when William Agnew (1825–1910) retired in 1895, the firm was very different from the one he had taken over in 1861.4 In the earlier decades, Agnew’s had made high returns on contemporary British artists, principally those connected with London’s Royal Academy of Arts, such as John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and Thomas Faed, while it had lost money on purchases of disputed continental Old 117

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Masters, including contested ‘Murillos’ and ‘Guidos’.5 Agnew’s was indisputably a toptier modern art dealership then, at the forefront of what has been defined, commercially, as the ‘golden age of the living painter’.6 But, after thirty years, the situation at Agnew’s had completely reversed: the highest-selling works on their books were by ‘deceased masters’, whereas modern British works were bought for ever-decreasing sums and even, at times, remained unsold. Agnew’s, however, continued to be a profitable and prestigious business, adapting to this seismic change in collecting tastes and even contributing to it. This chapter, then, traces the transformations occurring under the leadership of William Agnew, from 1861 until 1895, analysing the reasons for Agnew’s rise to prominence in the Old Master market. Not only did the firm increase its expertise in the field and establish innovative business practices, but it also strategically broadened its networks of collectors and advanced its social connections, among which Agnew’s ties with the National Gallery, London, were of crucial importance.

Agnew’s: History and Stock Agnew’s dealership originated, and flourished, in Manchester.7 The firm started in 1817, as the partnership between two businessmen: Liverpool-born Thomas Agnew the elder (1794–1871) and the Venetian Vittore Zanetti (c. 1746–1855). In 1835, when Zanetti retired to Italy, Thomas Agnew went solo, and in 1851, when his sons William Agnew and Thomas Agnew the younger (1827–83) joined it, the firm became ‘Thos Agnew and Sons’, the name it retained with little variation until 2013, although it soon became known simply as ‘Agnew’s’.8 Begun as a firm of framers, glaziers and restorers, Agnew’s provided its clients with many services, in addition to supplying a vast array of images in which it also traded, from costly paintings to inexpensive prints. As the century progressed, paintings became an ever larger part of the stock, and by the 1860s, Agnew’s were selling a wide range of pictures from their three galleries in Manchester, Liverpool and London.9 When Thomas the elder retired in 1861, his two sons shared the firm in joint partnership, with William as head of the business.10 William Agnew continued the specialization towards paintings, which he bought at high prices and sold at even higher ones, thus taking the business from strength to strength. Bayer and Page report that in 1870–1, the London art dealer Tooth purchased works for an average price of £39 and sold them for £49, whereas the sums recorded in the Agnew’s stock books are considerably, and consistently, much higher. For example, in June 1870, Agnew’s purchased paintings at an average price of £293 and sold them for £363.11 Costs were high because Agnew’s invested principally in established artists and in works of undisputed high quality and desirability. This strategy worked well and the turnover of stock was remarkable. Normally, works were sold by Agnew’s in the space of just a few weeks and often within days. William Agnew’s success can also be quantified by his enormous wealth: after he died in 1910, his estate was valued at £1.35 million.12 But William Agnew was more than a prosperous businessman. A keen philanthropist and supporter of charities and hospitals, he participated in the creation of art institutions, too. In particular, he was heavily involved with the foundation in Manchester of both Manchester City Art Gallery in 1883 and the Whitworth Art

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Institute in 1890.13 He was also an accomplished career politician in the Liberal Party. First a supporter and later a friend and political ally of Prime Minister William Gladstone (1809–98), William Agnew was elected to the House of Commons with a landslide victory at the February 1880 general election.14 He went on to represent the Liberal Party as a Member of Parliament for South-East Lancashire (1880–5) and Stretford (1885–6) in the second and third Gladstone governments.15

The Market for ‘Early English’ Art Even if European Old Masters were part of Zanetti and Agnew’s 1820s exhibitions, and a few names of seventeenth-century artists trickled down through the records of the firm, the majority of Agnew’s stock in the mid-nineteenth century consisted of living British painters.16 Nevertheless, there was another type of British art in which Agnew’s had dealt for some time, and which was expanding: eighteenth-century historic British pictures, then known as ‘Early English’. Dealing in Early English art was a crucial step for Agnew’s from trading almost exclusively in modern art to becoming best known for their trade in the Old Masters. It is, consequently, important to trace this all-important move within the current context of market transformation. From their stock books, Agnew’s emerges as a true pioneer in the market for eighteenth-century British painting, both for landscapes and portraits. Paintings by George Romney, Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds were sold by the firm from the mid-1860s, whereas other dealers, such as Knoedler and Tooth, did not trade in this type of art for another generation – until the early 1890s.17 In 1876, Agnew’s had already purchased a picture by an Early English artist at a record price: the portrait, Georgiana Cavendish Duchess of Devonshire by Gainsborough (Chatsworth House, Derbyshire) (Fig. 6.1) for £10,405.18 Early English painting was a profitable sector of the market for Agnew’s. For instance, in June 1868, a portrait of Mary Robinson by Gainsborough was purchased by the firm for £500 and sold immediately to the Manchester collector Richard Hemming for £1,050; and in May 1869, Miss Meyer as ‘Hebe’ by Reynolds (Ascott Estate, Buckinghamshire) was bought from Phillips for £2,000 and sold to Baron Lionel de Rothschild for £2,310.19 It was a fortunate conjunction of factors that enabled Agnew’s to dominate the market for Early English painting. Agnew’s had dealt in pictures since the late 1810s, and the firm participated in the market for eighteenth-century British paintings from its inception; secondary resale at Agnew’s of works by John Constable, J. M. W. Turner and Gainsborough is recorded from the mid-1820s.20 In fact, the northern industrialist clients of Agnew’s, who were predominantly known as modern British art collectors, also bought works by historic British artists, perceiving them as the illustrious precursors of Victorian painters.21 In the course of the 1860s and 1870s, critical reception of the Early English painters shifted. They were increasingly interpreted by leading art writers such as Richard and Samuel Redgrave as the founders of a native school of painting, and as such were then hailed as part of the European Old Master tradition and brought within the canon of acknowledged artistic schools.22 The Royal Academy’s Winter exhibitions, an annual show dedicated to the Old Masters that began

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Fig. 6.1 Thomas Gainsborough, Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, 1787. Oil on canvas, 101.6 × 127 cm. Chatsworth House, Derbyshire. Photograph by the author.

in 1870, also contributed to this critical shift. There, British painters such as Gainsborough, William Hogarth and Reynolds were exhibited together with canonical continental Old Masters such as Titian, Murillo and Hobbema, and from 1885 onwards Agnew’s contributed historic British pictures and seventeenth-century Dutch paintings to these exhibitions.23 Agnew’s pioneering involvement in the market for Early English painters is a crucial element for an understanding of how the firm shifted from dealing mainly in contemporary painting to selling older art: in the course of the 1870s, historic British painting and European Old Masters were increasingly sharing the same platforms of criticism, collecting and commerce.24

The 1860s and 1870s: Auction Purchases and Modern British Art Other chapters in this book, and essays elsewhere, have explored what might be described as the subterranean nature of the Old Master market in Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century – in other words, a trade based principally on travelling agents, the so-called ‘gentlemen-dealers’ who transported, and sold, works around mainland Europe and from Europe to Britain in discreet, if not intentionally

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invisible ways. But Agnew’s business model was different from Camuccini and Day, John Smith and others, who often liked to keep a deliberately low profile in order not to draw attention to their business deals, at least not until they had been secured. By contrast, and, indeed, like most modern art dealers in nineteenth-century London, Agnew’s made itself deliberately a highly visible business, which mounted travelling exhibitions, which it advertised together with its fashionable wares in the principal national newspapers, such as The Times, Manchester Guardian and Illustrated London News. Agnew’s stock was also procured in a different manner. Until the end of the nineteenth century, Agnew’s did not buy Old Masters in Europe or from travelling agents, and neither did they go touring the country for private sales from stately homes. Their purchases, for Old Masters as well as for modern art, were almost entirely made at auction – at Christie’s in the great majority of cases, but also Foster’s, Phillips and, later, Sotheby’s, and occasionally salesrooms outside London. The auction data collected by Bayer and Page confirms this: in the period 1870–1910, Agnew’s were the largest purchasers at Christie’s.25 In later decades, William Agnew’s prowess at auction was recounted with admiration. The art critic Marion Henry Spielmann in the Magazine of Art of 1888 defined him as ‘the recognized head of the trade, the Grand Mogul of picture-tradeland’.26 The illustration accompanying Spielmann’s piece shows William Agnew standing in the first row and towering, physically and metaphorically, over the other dealers (Fig. 6.2).27 A contemporary account of the William Wells Sale of May 1890 confirms William Agnew’s domination of the salesroom: ‘you can’t see Mr Agnew’s jovial countenance, you

Fig. 6.2 Illustration from T. W. Wilson, ‘A Sale at Christie’s’, Magazine of Art, vol. 11, 1888, p. 229. William Agnew is represented standing in the first row. Photograph by the author.

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can’t hear Mr Agnew’s formidable voice, but that hat of his holds you like the eye of the ancient mariner. Every bob of that hat means a thousand. It is splendid.’28 Agnew’s skills in the salesroom, lauded in the late 1880s, had started in the early 1860s. But what made the firm so proficient? High capital and correct price estimate were undoubtedly important factors.29 Agnew’s consistent and transparent charges for purchases at auction were also a novelty that enticed buyers. Agnew’s prices, at least for works purchased at auction, were not a guarded secret. The stock books and daybooks show that Agnew’s operated with a clear pricing structure for auction purchases: the firm would bid on behalf of clients for a 5 per cent commission and charged double – 10 per cent – if works were selected and purchased by the dealers during the auction and then chosen by buyers from Agnew’s own stock. Because the prices of works bought at auction were widely published in the press by the mid-nineteenth century, a percentagebased pricing structure offered a guarantee of financial transparency and fostered a relationship of trust between firm and client.30 And the more Agnew’s were successful at bidding, the more they were asked to bid on other people’s behalf, a virtuous circle or ‘snowball effect’ that contributed to their well-documented monopoly in the saleroom. Up to the early 1880s, Agnew’s principal sales and high revenue continued to be provided by sales of modern pictures. For instance, William Holman Hunt’s Shadow of Death (Manchester Art Gallery) was purchased for £10,500, the highest price that had ever been paid to a living artist.31 The painting toured Britain in a series of exhibitions, and Agnew’s garnered a profit of over £20,000 from the sale of entrance tickets to those loan shows and reproductions of the picture sold at them and directly from the firm.32 The painting was then donated to Manchester Art Gallery. Early English pictures, as noted, were also on the ascent in terms of fashion and art market prices, and represented a promising area of expansion for the firm. European Old Masters, by contrast, presented a challenge for the firm in these decades. According to the London stock books, the first noteworthy purchase of European Old Masters happened at the Arthur Ingram Aston Sale in August 1862, when Agnew’s acquired twenty-one Dutch, Spanish and French seventeenth-century paintings.33 Agnew’s were commissioned to buy eighteen works on behalf of Manchester collectors, including the industrialist James Marshall Brooks. Agnew’s also selected three works for their own stock – the small number of pictures purchased for the firm’s own stock is already indicative of a low interest. Two of these sold swiftly at the usual 10 per cent surcharge, including a Saint Francis in Meditation by Francisco Zurbarán (National Gallery, London), bought by the Manchester industrialist and collector Sam Mendel for £198.34 The third work, however, was a less fortunate choice – which may have had to do with William Agnew’s unfamiliarity in a field he was newly entering. He purchased a portrait of Don Andres de Andrade y la Cal, then ascribed to Murillo, for £472, the highest priced work that Agnew’s purchased at that sale. This work was, however, the replica of a well-known Murillo portrait (now Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) at that time in the collection of Thomas Baring.35 Agnew’s version remained in stock, unsold, for five years, until 1867, when it was disposed of at auction at a loss.36 Sales that combined modern British art with European Old Masters demonstrate clearly that Agnew’s still in this period made the biggest profits with the former rather than the latter. For instance, on 1 July 1880, Agnew’s bought from the J. W. Marshall Collection

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eleven works, a combination of Old Masters and modern British art, as a job lot for £2,000.37 The Old Masters sold for medium prices, the highest selling work being a Murillo, sold to the Belgian dealer Léon Gauchez (1827–1907) for £375.38 British paintings fetched much higher sums: a painting by William Collins, Rustic Hospitality, sold for £2,136, which was more than the purchase price of the entire collection.39 In comparison, the sale of Old Masters from the John Heugh Sale two years earlier had accrued a profit of just £152.40 Such lack of success and meagre earnings perhaps discouraged Agnew’s from investing in this type of art. Evidence from the firm’s stock books suggests they were not proactive purchasers in the field. For one thing, the acquisition of Old Masters in the years up to 1875 was sporadic. For another, the few paintings that appeared in the stock books were bought on a 5 per cent commission, which means that Agnew’s was bidding at auction only when specifically requested to do so by buyers, and on paintings chosen by the latter, rather than risking a speculative investment of their own capital. Buying on commission at auction, however, helped Agnew’s to develop three principal skills to operate in the Old Master market: first, to become aware of what type of stock was desirable for potential buyers of Old Masters; second, by handling so many works, Agnew’s developed their own visual knowledge and expertise; and third, their constant presence at auction fostered connections with a new client base. Agnew’s contacts, indeed, expanded from the mid-1870s, when longstanding collectors of Old Master paintings, such as Lord Overstone, Nathan and Lionel de Rothschild and National Gallery Director Frederic Burton, appear as new clients for works bought at auction in Agnew’s stock books. Perhaps some of these contacts were made through the mediation of George Scharf, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London, who had begun a friendly working relationship with William Agnew after the latter had ceded in 1869 at a favourable cost to Scharf ’s institution a self-portrait by William Hogarth.41

The 1880s and 1890s: Changes and Success in the Old Master Market Around 1880, the first signs of contraction in the market for modern art appeared in the Agnew’s stock books. Apparently, this sector was still going strong: data presented by the periodical The Year’s Art, which listed works sold by price, shows that up to the early 1900s, the highest sale prices were still achieved by British nineteenth-century works.42 For instance, Edwin Long’s Babylonian Marriage Market of 1875 (Royal Holloway, London) sold at Christie’s for a record 6,300 guineas (£6,615) in 1882.43 A closer analysis of the stock books, however, shows that this previously upward trend was, in fact, changing direction, and that the high prices reached in these sales were the laggards of an exhausted fashion. In practice, modern British art was taking longer to sell, and sometimes it did not sell at all.44 This reflected the wider social changes of the period: the economic depression that accelerated the impoverishment of the aristocracy also caused the demise of many businesses in England and of the many industrialist collectors of British art who had constituted the backbone of Agnew’s base of collectors up to the 1870s.45 Sam Mendel (1811–84), for instance, who had purchased extensively from Agnew’s in the mid-century, went bankrupt in 1875.46 Moreover, new platforms

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Fig. 6.3 Composite of images from the Agnew’s Stock Books for 1880–3, showing a new attention to attribution. The National Gallery Archive, London. Photograph by the author.

and venues for the sale of British art, such as artists’ clubs and associations, developed in the course of the decade with the knock-on effect that exhibiting in Bond Street no longer represented the gold standard that it once had for living artists.47 Agnew’s caution towards the Old Masters in the 1860s and 1870s perhaps also reflected the elements of uncertainty still present in this sector of the market, which still lacked a widespread consensus on authenticity and authorship. Replicas and forgeries abounded and purchases were loaded with risk: a successful operation in this sector required a different set of connoisseurial skills than trading in the work of still living or recently deceased painters. Agnew’s had to learn these skills to offset risk and uncertainty, and the stock books testify to a growing attention to attribution in the course of the decade (Fig. 6.3). New connections, as well as new skills, were bringing forward new opportunities: William Agnew’s election as a Member of Parliament in 1880 was a pivotal moment for the penetration of the firm into the Old Master market. It brought him into contact with a new group of buyers, his fellow politicians at Westminster, who started to appear as clients in the pages of the stock books. Being an MP also gave William Agnew a new social gravitas and standing.48 More opportunities were also presented by the increase in works of art on the market following the 1882–90 Settled Land Acts, and the necessity for skilled mediators during the large, and sometimes legally complicated, sales that ensued. For instance, in June 1882, at the celebrated Duke of Hamilton auctions, at Christie’s, whilst the National Gallery purchased eleven pictures for a total of £15,214, Agnew’s bought thirty-one paintings for just under £9,000. Seventeen of these were purchased on commission on behalf of British collectors, but the remaining fourteen were bought for the firm’s stock, and sold on efficiently, quickly and at a profit.49 Another significant leap for the firm came shortly after, in July 1882. Then, a young Conservative politician and collector, Robert George Windsor-Clive, Lord Windsor (later Lord Plymouth, 1857–1923), who previously had only bought on 5 per cent commission and chosen his own pictures personally at Christie’s, trusted Agnew’s with a purchase of a Fête Champêtre by Watteau from their own stock.50 Agnew’s gained more than financial profit from this transaction: the firm had conquered Windsor’s trust and thereafter quickly gained entry into Lord Windsor’s circle of aristocratic Old Master collectors. Agnew’s successes continued. On 20 April 1883, the stock books show that Agnew’s acquired a large batch of thirty paintings from another politician and aristocratic

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collector, the Liberal Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne (1845– 1955). These were bought for an undisclosed sum, and sold for the impressive total of £45,000 – members of the Rothschild family bought many of them. Another step forward for Agnew’s occurred at the June 1884 Leigh Court Sale, when it bought for its own stock a Holy Family by Murillo for £3,050, the highest price so far paid by the firm for a European Old Master. The work lingered in the stock books for over eight months, but it eventually sold for £3,675.51 Many indicators of Agnew’s newly gained esteem in this field followed. For instance, by 1884, Agnew’s were able to charge buyers for their expert opinion on Old Master paintings.52 The contact with the National Gallery in London, for whom Agnew’s had begun to bid officially since 1884, also proved a crucial factor in the firm’s ability to penetrate the Old Master market. Elsewhere, it has been demonstrated that when the National Gallery purchased Raphael’s Ansidei Madonna and Anthony van Dyck’s Equestrian Portrait of Charles I in 1885 from the Duke of Marlborough, William Agnew assumed a principal role in the negotiation process, defending the acquisition in Parliament and probably suggesting to Prime Minister Gladstone the lower estimate of £70,000 for the Ansidei Madonna against Marlborough’s request of £130,000.53 Following their role in this sale, Agnew’s was appointed, in 1886, official valuer of the Duke of Marlborough’s Collection Sale at Christie’s.54 William Agnew’s novel importance in the Old Master scene, as well as his being part-dealer and part-politician, was recognized by the painter Henry Brooks who, in his 1889 rendition of the Private View of the Royal Academy 1888 Old Masters Exhibition (National Portrait Gallery, London), depicted William Agnew in a front row position, deep in conversation with the prime minister, William Gladstone (Fig. 6.4). The successes continued into the 1890s: Agnew’s carried on bidding at Christie’s for the National Gallery and successfully negotiated for it the sale of four important paintings by Tintoretto and Veronese from the Earl of Darnley.55 Other important

Fig. 6.4 Henry Jamyn Brooks, The Private View of the Royal Academy 1888 Old Masters Exhibition, 1889. Oil on canvas, 154.5 cm × 271.5 cm. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

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Fig. 6.5 Bernardo Bellotto (formerly attributed to Canaletto), Il Campo di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, 1743–7. Oil on canvas, 70.8 × 111 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington.

transactions followed on the back of purchases that Agnew’s made at the June 1892 Earl of Dudley Sale at Christie’s; of the purchases the firm made at that auction, it went on to sell works by Canaletto (National Gallery of Art, Washington) (Fig. 6.5), Bonifacio de’Pitati and Palma Vecchio to, respectively, the American collector John G. Johnson (1841–1917), British Conservative politician Lord Wantage (1832–1901), and Australian industrialist Sir William Farrell (1846–1928).56 By then Agnew’s was an established dealer in the Old Masters. Arguably, the most striking success to date in the field of Old Master paintings for Agnew’s came in July 1894, when the firm sold a pair of portraits by Rembrandt, the Burgomaster Six and Wife of Burgomaster Six (both Buscot Park, Oxfordshire, the latter now attributed to a follower of Rembrandt) to Alexander Henderson, Lord Faringdon (1850–1934), for £12,000, thereby earning a commission of £1,500.57

Conclusion Up until 1895, Agnew’s focused firstly on penetrating the Old Master sector of the art market and then on becoming part of its already established network of circulation and exchange by gaining the trust of the principal Old Masters buyers. These were the aristocratic collectors connected with both the British Parliament and, especially, with the running of the National Gallery. Becoming part of political circuits and gaining high social standing and reputation were crucial elements of this process. The involvement of Agnew’s, however, was not merely a matter of adaptation: their input in terms of business practices contributed to transforming the traditional modus operandi

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of the Old Master market in London that, as seen in previous chapters of this book, was based on personal, often secretive, transactions. It was Agnew’s ability in managing goods and handling purchases at auction that brought an increased efficiency to the Old Master market’s logistics and financial transactions. But perhaps Agnew’s greatest innovation was the application to the Old Master market of a more transparent model of commerce that had recently developed in the trade for modern pictures, a model based on the operations of French dealers such as Ernest Gambart and La Maison Goupil, and a model to which Agnew’s had also contributed in significant ways.58 Although private contacts and social connections were still crucial aspects of this sector, with William Agnew the Old Master trade found a new, visible and transparent, professional form.

Notes 1

2

3

4

5 6 7 8

Gerard Reitlinger, The Economics of Taste: The Rise and Fall of Picture Prices, 1760– 1960 (London: Barrie & Rockliff, 1961), 175–206. This growth was certainly rapid and significant. Bayer and Page demonstrated that if in the 1870s and 1880s the contemporary art auction market was three times the size of the Old Master market, by 1890 the difference had halved to one-and-a-half times; at the turn of the century, both markets reached parity; and, from 1900 onwards, the market for older art took precedence. See Thomas M. Bayer and John Page, The Development of the Art Market in England: Money as Muse, 1730–1900 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), 103. David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1991), 25–34; Peter Mandler, The Fall and Rise of the Stately Home (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1997), 118–20; David Cannadine, ‘Pictures Across the Pond: Perspectives and Retrospectives’, in British Models of Art Collecting and the American Response: Reflections Across the Pond, ed. Inge Reist (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014), 9–26. Mandler, The Fall and Rise, 118–19. For later American collectors, see Flaminia Gennari Santori, The Melancholy of Masterpieces: Old Master Paintings in America, 1900–1914 (Milan: Cinque Continenti, 2003), 71–122; Melody B. Deusner, ‘In Seen and Unseen Places: The Henry G. Marquand House and Collection in England and America’, Art History 34 (2011): 754–73. Biographical information in [G. Agnew], Agnew’s, 1817–1967 (London: Agnew’s, 1967; hereafter cited as Agnew’s). Also, with bibliography, Barbara Pezzini, ‘Making a Market for Art: Agnew’s and the National Gallery, 1855–1930’ (PhD dissertation, University of Manchester and The National Gallery, London, 2017), 114–62. For Agnew’s earlier activities, see Dongho Chun, ‘Art Dealing in Nineteenth-Century England: The Case of Thomas Agnew’, Horizons 2 (2011): 255–77. Reitlinger, Economics of Taste, 143–76. For Agnew’s in Manchester, see Pezzini, ‘Making a Market for Art’, 73–108. The firm maintained this name until 1931 when it became ‘Thos. Agnew and Sons Ltd’, see Agnew’s, 51; Pezzini, ‘Making a Market for Art’, 78–86. On Agnew’s changed ownership in 2013, see ‘Decision to Close Firm a Sign of the Times Says Julian Agnew’, Antiques Trade Gazette (12 February 2013), online at: https://www. antiquestradegazette.com/news/2013/decision-to-close-firm-a-sign-of-the-timessays-julian-agnew/ (accessed 25 May 2020).

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9 Agnew’s, 19, 45–56; Pezzini, ‘Making a Market for Art’, 129–30. 10 For Agnew’s and the Royal Academy, see Barbara Pezzini ‘1870: William Agnew Purchases at the Summer Exhibition’, in The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, 1769–2018: A Chronicle, ed. Jessica Feather, Mark Hallett and Sarah V. Turner (New Haven, CT, and London: Paul Mellon Centre and Yale University Press, 2018) online: https://chronicle250.com/1870 (accessed 25 May 2020). 11 Thomas M. Bayer and John R. Page, ‘Arthur Tooth: A London Art Dealer in the Spotlight, 1870–71’, Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 9 (2010), online at: https:// www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring10/arthur-tooth (accessed 25 May 2020). See the entries in the National Gallery Archive (hereafter NGA), Agnew’s Stock Book 1A, no. 5963–6051. 12 William Agnew’s wealth at death reported by William Roberts, ‘Agnew, William’, in The Dictionary of National Biography (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1912), 24. 13 Pezzini, ‘Making a Market for Art’, 140–1. 14 For William Agnew’s biography and political career, see ibid., 129–41. 15 Ibid., 130–1. 16 See the firm’s Stock Books, NGA, 1–4; Chun, ‘Art Dealing’, 255–60. 17 These are the earliest examples in the Agnew’s stock books for the timeframe considered in this book: Girl with Flowers by George Romney was bought on 12 February 1865; Miss Crewe by Reynolds was bought on 2 June 1866; and Simplicity by Reynolds was bought on 9 June 1866; see NGA Agnew’s Stock Book 1A, nos. 4032, 4206 and 4213, respectively. For Goupil and Knoedler, see the stock books of those firms, available at the Getty Provenance Index®, online at: https://piprod.getty.edu/ starweb/pi/servlet.starweb?path=pi/pi.web#? (accessed 25 May 2020). 18 Purchased on 6 May 1876 at the Wynn Ellis Sale; see NGA, Agnew’s Stock Book 3, no. 9952. 19 NGA, Agnew’s Stock Book 1A, no. 4951 and no. 5343. 20 Works by Gainsborough, Morland and Wilson were sold and bought by Agnew and Zanetti at the June 1825 Winstanley Sale in Manchester (accessed through the Getty Provenance Index®); Chun, Art Dealing, 259–60. 21 Industrialist John Heugh was an early buyer of British portraiture, although for much smaller sums than the Rothschilds. For example, he bought two portraits of Dr Sandys and Mrs Sandys by Hogarth on 11 October 1869 for £115; see NGA, Stock Book 1A, no. 5566 and 5567. The Robert Vernon Collection also paired contemporary art with works by Turner and Gainsborough; see Robyn Hamlyn, Robert Vernon’s Gift: British Art for the Nation, 1847 (London: Tate, 1993), 67–70. 22 Richard and Samuel Redgrave, A Century of Painters of the English School (London: Sampson Low, 1866). 23 As an example, in the first room of the Royal Academy exhibition, a landscape by Richard Wilson and two portraits by Reynolds were hung side by side with a landscape by Rembrandt, The Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci and The Triumph of Religion by Rubens; see Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House: Exhibition of the Works of the Old Masters (London: Clowes, 1870), 3–4. William Agnew had lent some modern works in 1870 and his involvement with the Royal Academy exhibitions, until his retirement in December 1895, increased over time. In 1878, he lent three engravings; then he lent paintings, the numbers of loans growing every year until he lent six pictures in 1896 – by John Sell Cotman, David Cox, Frederick Walker, George Mason, Gainsborough and Reynolds.

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24 Pamela Fletcher and Anne Helmreich ‘The Royal Academy of Arts’, in The Rise of the Modern Art Market in London, 1850–1939, ed. Pamela Fletcher and Anne Helmreich (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), 5–7. 25 Data provided in their census of 40,000 auction records by Bayer and Page, ‘Tooth’, 13. 26 Marion H. Spielmann, ‘Glimpses of Artist-Life: Christies’, Magazine of Art 11 (1888), 225–32. 27 T. W. Wilson, ‘A Sale at Christie’s’, Magazine of Art 11 (1888): 229. 28 Agnew’s, 38. 29 Pezzini, ‘Making a Market for Art’, 126–30. 30 On newspapers and prices in the nineteenth century, see Mark Westgarth, ‘FloridLooking Speculators in Art and Virtu: The London Picture Trade, c. 1850’, in The Rise, ed. Fletcher and Helmreich, 26–46. 31 Pezzini, ‘Making a Market for Art’, 110. 32 For Agnews and The Shadow of Death, see Reitlinger, Economics of Taste, 27, 147–8; Brenda Rix, ‘Prints: Spreading the Word’, in Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision, ed. Katharine Lochnan and Carol Jacobi (Toronto: Yale University Press, 2008), 171–90. 33 NGA, Agnew’s Stock Book 1*, nos. 2661–2682. 34 Ibid., no. 2663. This picture is NG5655, bequeathed to the National Gallery by Major Charles Edmund Wedgwood Wood in 1946. 35 The version in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acc. no. 27.219, has an impeccable provenance: from the Andrade family, it was subsequently sold to Louis Philippe in 1837; at his sale at Christie’s, on 14 May 1853, it was purchased by Graves for Thomas Baring; Baring’s descendants sold it to Robert Langton Douglas in 1927; Douglas then sold it to the Metropolitan Museum. Full provenance details are available from the museum’s website. 36 NGA, Agnew’s Stock Book 1*, no. 2661. 37 NGA, Agnew’s Stock Book 4, nos 1588–1598. 38 On Gauchez, see Ingrid Goddeeris, ‘La contribution de Léon Gauchez dans la constitution, valorization et diffusion de la collection de tableaux de John Waterloo Wilson’, Revue Cahiers Bruxellois/Brusselse Cahiers 48 (2016): 41–81. 39 NGA, Agnew’s Stock Book 4, nos 1592 and 1593. 40 NGA, Agnew’s Stock Book 3, nos 571–608. 41 Pezzini, ‘Making a Market for Art’, 102–5. 42 The Year’s Art, vols I–IX (London: Macmillan, 1882–90). 43 William Roberts, Memorials of Christie‘s: A Record of Art Sales from 1766 to 1896, I (London: Bell, 1897), 328. 44 For instance, NGA, Agnew’s Stock Book 4, no. 1718 (Hardy). Even when modern British art sold, it took longer to find a buyer. For example, William Frith and Thomas Creswick’s A Shore, bought on 30 April 1881 (Stock Book 4, no. 1930) remained for over one year in stock, whereas most works usually sold in a matter of weeks. If, up to the 1870s, the long periods when unsold works remained on the stock books relate to unfortunate Old Master acquisitions, from the early 1880s onwards, such periods relate to British artists. 45 Diane Sachko Macleod, Art and the Victorian Middle Class: Money and the Making of Cultural Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 100–20. 46 Sam Mendel’s estate was sold at Christie’s, London, 15 March 1875. 47 See the work of Kenneth McConkey, especially his Memory and Desire: Painting in Britain and Ireland at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Burlington, VT and London: Ashgate, 2001), 19–37.

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48 The Agnew’s stock books record many MPs as buyers of works from 1880 onwards. For example, in the period 1880–6, 131 works were sold to MPs, most notably C. Tennant (44 works), G. Palmer (12 works), F. W. Grafton (7 works), H. Edwards (6 works), John Pender (6 works), J. Richardson (6 works) and Sir H. A. Bass (5 works). Although the names of some buyers listed as ‘MP’ continue to appear in the stock books even after 1886, such as C. Flower, John Barrand, Lees Knowles and J.G. Bolton, the number of works sold to them diminishes considerably. 49 NGA, Agnew’s Stock Book 4, nos 2473–2504. Agnew’s buyers at the Hamilton Palace Sale included Lord Windsor; the Scottish Conservative politician, Sir Michael Shaw Stewart; the Liberal MP, William Fowler; Conservative MP, Albert Brassey; Robert Loyd Lindsay (Baron Wantage); former Conservative MP, Henry Edwards; and the Irish Liberal politician, James Nicholson Richardson. The National Gallery purchases included a large Assumption of the Virgin by Botticelli (now attributed to Botticini) at £4,777 and a Circumcision by Luca Signorelli at £3,150. For the Hamilton Sale, see NGA, National Gallery Board Minutes, 26 June 1882, 214. 50 NGA, Agnew’s Stock Book 4, no. 2545. 51 Ibid., no. 3347. 52 On 9 February 1884, Agnew’s charged one guinea ‘to opinion upon picture, supposed Rembrandt’, NGA, Agnew’s London Day Book 8, 110. 53 NG1171 and NG1172, respectively. See Pezzini, ‘Making a Market for Art’, 141–62. 54 Roberts, Memorials, II, 109. 55 The paintings in question are: Jacopo Tintoretto’s Origin of the Milky Way (NG1313), Paolo Veronese ‘s Unfaithfulness (NG1318), Scorn (NG1324) and Happy Union (NG1326); see Pezzini, ‘Making a Market for Art’, 124–5. 56 NGA, Agnew’s Stock Book 6, nos 6501–6505. 57 Ibid., nos 7024–7025. 58 On Gambert, see Pamela M. Fletcher, ‘Creating the French Gallery: Ernest Gambart and the Rise of the Commercial Art Gallery in Mid-Victorian London’, NineteenthCentury Art Worldwide 6 (2007), online at: http://19thc-artworldwide.org/index.php/ spring07/143-creating-the-french-gallery-ernest-gambart-and-the-rise-of-thecommercial-art-gallery-in-mid-victorian-london (accessed 25 May 2020). On Goupil, see Agnès Penot ‘The Perils and Perks of Trading Art Overseas: Goupil’s New York Branch’, Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 16 (2017), online at: https://www.19thcartworldwide.org/spring17/penot-on-the-perils-and-perks-of-trading-art-overseasgoupils-new-york-branch (accessed 25 May 2020); Agnès Penot, La maison Goupil: galerie d’art internationale au XIXe siècle (Paris: Mare at Martin Arts, 2017).

7

Taste or Opportunity?: Durand-Ruel and Spanish Old Masters Véronique Gerard Powell

The French enthusiasm for Spanish culture throughout the nineteenth century is a well-known fact. One of its aspects, the interest in Spanish Old Masters, was born out of the controversial artistic conquests of the Napoleonic army during the Peninsular War (1807–14).1 It blossomed in the period 1838–48 with the Galerie espagnole in the Louvre, a gathering of some 400 Spanish paintings ordered by King Louis-Philippe.2 By the early 1860s, Spanish Old Masters were part and parcel of the Parisian art market, thanks to the dispersal of private loot amassed during the Peninsula War and the arrival in Paris of several important Spanish collections. Some Spanish collectors came in exile or to escape the instability of their own country; others were confronted with the non-existence of a professional art market in Madrid, due to the predominance of inherited aristocratic collections and the lack of economic development.3 Faced with an absence of auction houses at home, they took advantage of the creation of a direct railway line from Paris to Madrid (1864), as well as of the newly reconstructed Hôtel des ventes, to auction their private art collections in Paris.4 In Paris, the Hôtel Drouot – as the auction house quickly became known – monopolized the trade in Spanish Old Masters for a long time. Léa Saint-Raymond’s reminder, in an earlier chapter, that in the second half of the nineteenth century dealers in France were far more interested in contemporary art than in the Old Masters is, except in a few cases like Murillo or Velázquez, also true for Spanish artists of whom there was at the time comparatively little knowledge.5 Indeed, when the Countess of Quinto organized in 1862 a direct sale of her late husband’s collection, consisting mainly of Spanish works, she initially relied on the obscure art dealer Benjamin Gogué (1812–71), but he proved unable to sell the collection successfully.6 Further on in this book, Agnès Penot summarizes Adolphe Goupil’s business strategy as a whole and what she notes is applicable to his business dealings with Spain in particular,7 where he forged close relations with a number of Spanish contemporary artists including Mariano Fortuny (1838–74) and Ignacio León y Escosura (1834–1901).8 But, as far as Old Masters were concerned, Goupil sold only prints and copies of paintings by Murillo, among them, an ‘Immaculate Conception from Madrid’ bought on 1 April 1865 by Durand-Ruel.9 131

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At the end of the century, however, when the Parisian market started to show again a strong interest in the Old Masters – as part of a wider global shift – a perspicacious art dealer could have taken advantage of the large number of high-quality Spanish works arriving in Paris and of the emerging interest of collectors in this school. Was Paul Durand-Ruel (1831–1922) such a man? He, indeed, during his long career, took an occasional and opportunist interest in Spanish Old Master paintings. The first episode occurred between 1868 and 1872, when, during a period in which he was mainly selling French works of ‘La belle école de 1830’, five portraits by Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) passed through his hands. He devoted the next thirty years mainly to the French Impressionists and their contemporaries. It was not until 1903 that, pushed by his American clients, the second episode took place, on which occasion he not only renewed his interest for Goya but also discovered El Greco.10

An Early Interest in Goya, 1868–70 Paris really discovered Goya’s paintings in 1867. Facing bankruptcy, the Marqués de Salamanca (1811–83) put part of his picture collection – among them eight works attributed to Goya – on sale (3–6 June) in his Parisian mansion in rue de la Victoire.11 Also in 1867, the writer Charles Yriarte published Goya, a first attempt to establish a catalogue raisonné, which included the names of the owners, past and present, of Goya’s work.12 Durand-Ruel would certainly have been made aware of this pioneering publication – if he did not already know of it – when he received, at the end of 1868, a letter from the painter Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz (1815–94) offering him at least one portrait by Goya.13 The content of this letter can be deduced from another one, written on 29 January 1869 by Federico to his son Raimundo (1841–1920) in Paris, telling him that he had just sent to Durand-Ruel Goya’s Portrait of Asensio Juliá, ‘El Pescadoret’ (Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown).14 Following the 1868 Glorious Revolution, Federico was no longer Director of the Prado Museum; in need of money, he was trying to sell pictures from the family collection, among them the Asensio Juliá.15 The January letter shows that the contact with Durand-Ruel, who had previously been unknown to Madrazo senior, was the result of networking and collaboration between dealers, a method previously used by, among others, the British dealer John Smith, as Julia Armstrong-Totten has demonstrated elsewhere in this volume. Their connection came about through a link between Federico’s brother, Luis de Madrazo (1825–97) and a ‘Mr Godecharle’, probably Charles, son of the Belgian art dealer Josse Godecharle (d.1849). Godecharle convinced Durand-Ruel to buy for 2,000 francs Goya’s Asensio Juliá. A second painting, Pedro Mocarte (Hispanic Society, New York) which, according to Yriarte, belonged to Luis de Madrazo followed the same route, appearing in 1870 in the Edwards Sale.16 Federico de Madrazo acted most probably as an intermediary to get Durand-Ruel a Young Girl with a Rose (Fig. 7.1), which in 1867 belonged to a member of the royal court, Monsignor Tomás Iglesias y Bárcones, Patriarch of the West Indies (1803–74). On his own account, Durand-Ruel paid 3,000 francs for it, keeping the former owner’s title, Presumed Portrait of Charlotte Corday, rejected by Yriarte.17 The current convincing attribution to Agustin Esteve is quite recent.18 Madrazo was therefore,

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Fig. 7.1 Agustín Esteve y Marqués. Portrait of a Young Woman Holding Two Roses, c. 1790. Oil on canvas, 103 × 82 cm. Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s.

albeit just for a one-off deal, the ‘agent in Madrid’ quoted in Durand-Ruel’s Mémoires although the French dealer would later resort to using, in a similar fashion, Federico’s sons, Raimundo and Ricardo.19 Durand-Ruel may have used the paintings immediately as collateral for a loan from the banker Charles Edwards.20 The next event of importance in this narrative occurred when Alphonse Oudry’s collection was auctioned at Drouot’s, on 16 and 17 April 1869. Oudry (1819–69) was a civil engineer, who had made his fortune during the 1850s by selling patents of his inventions.21 Taking advantage of the many auction sales of the 1860s, he rapidly assembled a spectacular collection of Italian, Spanish and Northern Old Masters that he intended to display in a specially designed gallery, in his newly built mansion on the Quai de Billy in Paris.22 However, his untimely death in Naples (5 February 1869) led to his brother putting the pictures up for sale less than two months later, on 16–23 April 1869.23 Durand-Ruel’s comments on the auction imply that it was a failure, which is untrue: many Parisian art dealers (Sano, Sedelmeyer, Warneck, Goupil, Féral, etc.) bought most of the items at good prices.24 In addition to two works from his favourite foreign school – Rembrandt’s famous Saul and David, the highest bid of the sale (Mauritshuis, The Hague), and a Ruisdael – Durand-Ruel ‘impulsively’ acquired five Spanish paintings out of the thirty-four on sale: Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert, a landscape by Collantes, for 1,100 francs (RISD Museum, Providence); the best Ribera of the sale, a Saint John the Baptist, signed and dated 1638, for 3,400 francs (Private

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Collection, Barcelona); a portrait of Queen Mariana de Austria ascribed to Velázquez (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) for 2,300 francs;25 and two female portraits given to Goya. One of these was a Portrait of a Young Lady (Ringling Museum, Sarasota, FL), depicting a woman resting in an armchair, having just put down her guitar, for which he paid 4,200 francs (Fig. 7.2).26 Very fond of the picture, now considered as ‘Manner of Goya’, he baptized it Goya’s Mistress for the Edwards Sale.27 The other was Lady with a Fan (Portrait of Lorenza Correa), a genuine Goya, for which he paid 2,200 francs (Louvre, Paris). Certainly, the greatest novelty of Oudry’s Spanish collection was his five paintings by El Greco. Although the painter, still largely unknown, was starting to interest new collectors, Durand-Ruel did not participate in this market at this point, whilst Charles Sedelmeyer bought the Portrait of Covarrubias (now Portrait of Francisco de Pisa, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX) and the expert Alexis Febvre (1810–81) acquired the Saint Ildefonso (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) for the painter Jean-François Millet.28 The possession, however, of five portraits apparently by Goya guaranteed Durand-Ruel’s position as the first French dealer interested in the Spanish artist, and as very much in the vanguard, given that it was just at this time when a group of collectors started to look seriously at his work. In 1877, Yriarte wrote: ‘Goya became fashionable, [and] some of his pictures crossed the Pyrénées to end up Rue de la Paix, in the Durand-Ruel Gallery.’29 One year after their initial purchase by Durand-Ruel,

Fig. 7.2 Manner of Goya, Portrait of a Woman, with a Guitar, undated. Oil on canvas, 166.7 × 116.8 cm. © The Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota.

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these portraits were among the highlights of the Edwards Sale (7 March 1870), the financial background of which is well known. Presented as the sale of the collection of the banker Charles Edwards, it was, in fact, a gathering of paintings belonging to Durand-Ruel that he was using as the guarantee against the loans he had obtained from the banker.30 Convinced of the value of the so-called Charlotte Corday, DurandRuel bought it back at 14,000 francs, the highest price a ‘Goya’ had ever reached in France. He managed to sell Goya’s Mistress for 11,600 francs to the Baron de Pommereul.31 Even more than their wrong attribution – an understandable mistake when so little was known of the painter – the fact of keeping an obviously irrelevant title, rejected by Yriarte, and of giving a fancy one to the other portrait, emphasizes Durand-Ruel’s lack of a scholarly approach when dealing with this Old Master, an attitude very different to that of Nieuwenhuys or John Smith, analysed earlier in this volume.32 The Edwards Sale, despite these issues, did attract two new collectors: the banker Henri Bamberger (1826–1908), newly settled in Paris, who paid 6,500 francs for Asensio Juliá33 and Carlos González de Cándamo Iriarte (1847–99), the first member of the wealthy Peruvian Cándamo family to live in the French capital, who paid 9,000 francs for Don Pedro de Mocarte.34 It would take a long time for amateurs to recognize and appreciate the striking naturalism of The Lady with a Fan, which was bought in at 3,550 francs. Despite this and Durand-Ruel’s obstinacy over Charlotte Corday, it seems that the sale of the Goya pictures, at prices slightly higher than the emerging market, was a personal success for the dealer. Little by little, Durand-Ruel sold his remaining Spanish paintings.35 The sale in 1872 of Charlotte Corday to Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild (1825–99) was consistent with the emerging fashion among wealthy French collectors with an eclectic taste to acquire at least one portrait by Goya. Re-baptized first as The Artist’s Daughter, then as Young Girl with a Rose, the painting was often displayed in charity exhibitions, where private collectors lent works to raise money for good causes.36 Finally, it is worth mentioning that, in his Old Master sale of 20 March 1874, Durand-Ruel presented without any success two bullfighting scenes, a female portrait (65 × 62 cm), and a Cesar Borgia [Saint Francis] Taking Leave of His Family, the dimensions of which (37 × 28 cm) coincide with those of a sketch belonging then and still now to the Santa Cruz family.37

Later Acquisitions in Spain for American and European Collectors, 1890s–1910s For many years after the 1868–70 venture, while Spanish Old Masters were attracting a growing number of French collectors, Durand-Ruel lost any further interest in them. His business focused mainly on the French Impressionists, and given the success he enjoyed in this area, he did not have to undergo the shift from dealing in contemporary art to Old Masters that a firm like Goupil failed to undertake or that Agnews in London successfully managed.38 However, he soon came to realize that, given the growing American infatuation with European Old Masters, it would be foolhardy not to get involved in an area that had the potential to enhance his overseas business.39 Indeed, by

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the turn of the century, the United States shared Europe’s strong interest in all forms of Spanish art, a taste fed by contemporary artists and important exhibitions in Madrid.40 Yet Spain’s strong sense of its patrimony, combined with the weakness of its art market and general lack of curiosity on the part of European dealers, meant that very few of the profusion of Spanish Old Masters still in Spain became available to international collectors. Notwithstanding, and even lacking an extended knowledge or expertise, Durand-Ruel became at the turn of the century the main introducer of paintings by Goya and El Greco, the two revolutionary Spanish masters, into the United States as well as into France and Germany. Clearly, the dealer’s remarkable business flair and tenacity had much to do with his success in this novel area. As the story of his relations with the Havemeyers is already well known, for the current discussion only a few remarks need to be made concerning the part DurandRuel played to satisfy their Hispanophile taste.41 For one thing, Durand-Ruel was involved with introducing Louisine and Harry Havemeyer to Goya’s art when he showed them Bartolomé Sureda y Miserol and Thérèse Louise de Sureda (both National Gallery of Art, Washington) in Paris, on 28 September 1897, paintings which immediately won them over to the master.42 It may in fact have been Raimundo de Madrazo, living in Paris, who facilitated their initial contact with the paintings’ owner who, according to Louisine, asked ‘nearly 50,000 pesetas’ for the picture.43 DurandRuel’s involvement in the Havemeyers’ Spanish collection started in earnest in 1903 because, during their earlier Spanish trip of 1901, they had relied on their companion, the painter Mary Cassatt and, with more success, on a certain Joseph Wicht, who had opened many doors and started discussions about possible acquisitions.44 After Wicht’s death in 1902, Harry Havemeyer was ‘obliged to request M. Durand-Ruel of Paris to go to Spain and negotiate the purchase of El Greco’s Cardinal Niño de Guevara and Goya’s Majas on a Balcony’ (both Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).45 The dealer, who agreed to act in this way, consequently made three trips to Spain, in February 1903, and in June and October 1904.46 He was constantly helped there by the youngest of the Madrazo brothers, Ricardo (1852–1917), who knew the Havemeyers.47 Following in Wicht’s footsteps, Durand-Ruel tried to obtain El Greco’s Cardinal from Juan de Zabala y Guzmán, 14th Duke of Nájera and Earl of Paredes de Nava (1844–1910), living in Palacio de Oñate, his Madrilene mansion. The family had owned the portrait since Niño de Guevara’s nephew had inherited it in the early seventeenth century and so the duke was loathed to give it up; he twice refused the dealer’s offer (February and December 1903). But his sumptuary expenses, accumulated when representing the Spanish court in Russia and Britain, had ruined him.48 Consequently, Durand-Ruel secured the deal during his second trip, on 1 June 1904, giving 200,000 pesetas to the duke and asking the Havemeyers for 225,000 francs.49 Following on from that transaction, in 1907, Durand-Ruel bought again from the Oñate Palace, and again for the Havemeyers through Ricardo de Madrazo, El Greco’s astonishing View of Toledo (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).50 On his third trip to Madrid, in early October 1904, the French dealer went on to purchase from Francisco de Borbón y Borbón, Duque de Marchena (1861–1923) Goya’s Majas on a Balcony (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), a picture that had been bought by Don Francisco’s father, the keen collector Infante Sebastián Gabriel de Borbón (1811–75).51

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Durand-Ruel also attempted to sell the Havemeyers another El Greco – the altarpiece of The Assumption of the Virgin (Art Institute, Chicago) that the pair had admired earlier on in the Madrilene Palace of Don Sebastian Gabriel’s widow; it had been acquired by the Infante about 1830. After her death in 1902, the painting had passed into co-ownership among her heirs, who wished to sell it. In October 1904, Durand-Ruel saw the painting when it was on temporary loan to the Prado. The museum could not afford to acquire it, so Durand-Ruel negotiated its sale with the Duke of Marchena and his brother Alfonso de Borbón. In a letter to the Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla dated 28 October 1904, Aureliano de Beruete wrote that ‘Durand-Ruel (it is a secret) is taking away Greco’s Assumption and Goya’s Majas’.52 It was the Havemeyers who provided the 100,000 francs requested – interestingly, a far smaller sum than that asked for the other El Grecos. On seeing its huge proportions – its unwieldy size may explain the comparatively low sale price – the American couple offered it, unsuccessfully, to the Metropolitan Museum. Durand-Ruel kept it a further two years before ultimately selling it, with the financial contribution of Nancy Atwood Sprague, to the Art Institute of Chicago.53 It seems that Durand-Ruel benefited fully from this sale. What is most remarkable about these Spanish trips is how quickly Durand-Ruel understood the richness of the Spanish collections, an abundance not yet tapped into by any other dealer, and how proficiently he expanded his business in that area far beyond the Havemeyers. Probably helped significantly by Ricardo de Madrazo, his strategy to find potentially eligible pictures for sale was to compile a list of current private owners of Spanish pictures. He did this through using the names listed in the acknowledgements, lenders’ lists and photograph credits of two major exhibitions, one on Goya (1900), the other on El Greco (1902) that had recently taken place in Madrid.54 This was a tried-and-tested practice among dealers at this time, and helps explains why historical survey volumes of important private art collections, such as that compiled for the English art scene by Gustav Waagen in the 1850s, remained in circulation. Durand-Ruel managed to buy at least nine portraits by Goya from this group of private owners-cum-lenders, which he sold on more or less immediately to American or European buyers. On 4 April 1903, for instance, he registered the purchase of Doña Narcisa Barañana de Goicoechea (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) bought from a descendant, Felipe Moret e Ibargoitia, along with the portrait of her husband Juan Bautista de Goicoechea (Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsrühe), both of which he had already sold by 30 April to Havemeyer.55 From Don Manuel Soler y Alarcón, a Gentleman of the Court, Durand-Ruel acquired the portrait of Antonio Gasparini (Private Collection) as well as the Portrait of a Draughtsman, the latter which he immediately sold, for 40,000 francs, to the Louvre that had just acquired the artist’s Lady with a Fan, another painting with a Durand-Ruel provenance.56 From Francisco Durán y Servent, the dealer obtained the portraits of the architects Juan Antonio Cuervo and Tiburcio Pérez exhibited in 1900.57 He sold the Tiburcio Pérez (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) straight on to the American lawyer and archaeologist Theodore M. Davis for $11,000 while John Rockfeller Jr. took the Juan Antonio Cuervo (Cleveland Museum of Art). After the 1900 exhibition, Francisco Llorente y García de Vinuesa sold the portrait of Juan Antonio Llorente (Museu de Arte, Sao Paulo) to Juan

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Lafora, the best known antiques dealer in Madrid, from whom Durand-Ruel bought it and sent it to the dealer Paul Cassirer in Berlin (Fig. 7.3).58 In 1905, Durand-Ruel sent the portrait of the actor Isidoro Máiquez, lent to the 1900 exhibition by the Marqués de Casa Torres (no. 125), to the New York branch of his firm (The Art Institute, Chicago).59 In 1906, the lithographer Eduardo Portabella, from Zaragoza, sold him Goya’s portrait of Martín Zapater, which was later bought by the Basque industrialist Ramón de la Sota (Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao).60 At the same time, Durand-Ruel was also buying portraits by Goya as they became available on the Parisian market. In 1905, he sent Tadeo Bravo de Rivero (Brooklyn Museum, New York), acquired on 24 March 1905 in an anonymous Parisian auction, to Paul Cassirer.61 A year later, on 9 March 1906, he paid 35,000 francs to the antiques dealer Eugène Kraemer for the Young Lady wearing a Mantilla and a Basquina (National Gallery, Washington), which he then sold two months later at a huge profit – his asking price was 90,000 francs – to the Havemeyers.62 In 1912, the Durand-Ruel New York branch lent two portraits to the Copley Society Exhibition of Paintings by Spanish Masters in Boston, which might have come from either France or Spain: Goya’s Portrait of General X (no. 1) may be the same work now called General Guye (Virginia Museum of Arts), which had been kept in General Guye’s French family until the beginning of the twentieth century, and The Marchioness of San Andrés (no. 51), probably one of her portraits by Esteve, now in Museo San Carlos, Mexico City.63 Durand-Ruel’s Spanish business had a splendid conclusion. The Infante Antonio de Orleans (1866–1930), son of the Duke of Montpensier, lived an extravagant life, which led him quickly to ruin. Reduced to selling works of art inherited from his parents,64

Fig. 7.3 Jean Laurent, The Death of Laocoön by El Greco, photograph, 1868–72, Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, VN-07599 © Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, Fototeca del Patrimonio Histórico, Madrid.

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Fig. 7.4 Anonymous, Francisco Goya’s Majas on a Balcony, c. 1911. Albumen print, mounted on board with the name of Durand-Ruel Gallery, 17.4 × 64.4 cm. Private Collection. Archive Enriqueta Frankfort Harris, London. Reprinted with permission.

Don Antonio got in touch, around 1908–9, with Durand-Ruel who, by then, was well known in Spain.65 Given that the paintings were kept in the Orleans Palace in Sanlucar de Barrameda, it is likely that Durand-Ruel chose them after looking at photographs rather than travelling to the south of Spain to see them in person.66 Indeed, he may have known Jean Laurent’s photographs of the Montpensier Collection taken in the Seville Palace of San Telmo between 1868 and 1872.67 Durand-Ruel first bought El Greco’s extraordinary Laocoön (National Gallery of Art, Washington, Fig.7.3), which appears in the stock books of the years 1908–10.68 He immediately sent it to Paul Cassirer in Munich, where it fascinated the young generation of German artists.69 He then purchased the six paintings attributed to Goya which had remained in the Orleans Collection: in 1910, four portraits, in oval frames, of King Charles IV (Private Collection); Queen Maria-Luisa (Taft Museum, Cincinnati); Ferdinand VII when Prince of Asturias (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York); and Infanta María Isabel (Private Collection), mother of the Duchess of Montpensier, which had decorated the main gallery of the Palace of San Telmo. They are now considered as possible original sketches for The Family of Carlos IV (Museo del Prado, Madrid), completed by another

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hand.70 On 27 January 1911, Durand-Ruel acquired, from the Infante Antonio, Goya’s Portrait of Asensio Julià (Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid), which he later sent to his New York gallery.71 Probably the same day, he took the smaller, but excellent, version of The Majas at the Balcony, and sold it on to Edmond de Rothschild (Private Collection, Fig.7.4).72 It seems very probable – although so far it has not been possible to prove it – that Murillo’s famous Virgin and Child (Virgen de la faja) (Private Collection), which was in 1892 the most expensive item of Antonio de Orleans’ share of inheritance, and still in his collection in 1900, passed at that point through Durand-Ruel’s hands.73

Conclusion Durand-Ruel’s Spanish business represents a small and limited but nonetheless very lucrative part of his trade. It shows the extraordinary efficiency of his working methods, based on a winning mix of opportunism, employment of efficient intermediaries, practical knowledge and business acumen. For these reasons and more, he was able to discern in advance to whom to sell a work that he had the opportunity to acquire. Interestingly, his dealings on the art market in relation to Spanish Old Masters do not seem to be linked to any personal interest in this school; certainly, he nowhere acknowledged either its aesthetic merits or historical importance. He seldom dealt with Spanish masters other than Goya and El Greco, handling only one Murillo, one Ribera and one Velázquez. Indeed, analysing the facts and figures suggests that roughly 90 per cent of Durand-Ruel’s transactions in this field concerned portraits by Goya. It was in this particular area that he played a pioneering role in the 1870s and was, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the person primarily responsible for the export of Goya’s portraits out of Spain and for their subsequent dispersal across Europe and the United States.

Notes 1

2

3

Ilse Hempel Lipschutz, Spanish Painting and the French Romantics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972); Gary Tinterow and Geneviève Lacambre, eds, Manet/ Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2003). Jeannine Baticle and Cristina Marinas, La Galerie espagnole de Louis-Philippe au Louvre, 1838–1848 (Paris: Réunion des musé es nationaux (RMN), 1981); Alisa Luxenberg, The Galerie espagnole and the Museo Nacional, 1833–1853: Saving Spanish Art, or the Politics of Patrimony (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008). [Romualdo Nogués], Ropavejeros, anticuarios y coleccionistas por un soldado viejo natural de Borja (1890; Valladolid: Maxtor, 2006) gives a vivid account of the anachronistic state of the Spanish art market; Oscar E. Vázquez, Inventing the Art Collection: Patrons, Markets and the State in Nineteenth-Century Spain (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 2001), 53–6. Pedro Martínez Plaza’s recently published PhD dissertation, El coleccionismo de pintura en Madrid durante el siglo XIX (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica (CEEH), 2018) is an important contribution to the field. The case of Barcelona, because it had so few collectors of Spanish Old Masters, is not relevant here.

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5 6

7 8

9

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11 12 13

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Manuel Charpy, ‘The Auction House and Its Surroundings: The Trade in Antiques and Second-Hand Items in Paris during the Nineteenth Century’, in Between Novelties and Antiques: Mixed Consumer Patterns in Western European History, ed. Ilja Van Damme, Natacha Coquery, John Stobart and Bruno Blondé (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), 217–33. For Spanish collectors in Paris, see Véronique Gerard Powell, ‘Les collectionneurs espagnols et la vente d’œuvres d’art à Paris au XIXe siècle’, in El arte español entre Roma y Paris: Intercambios artísticos y circulación de modelos, ed. Luis Sazatornil Ruiz and Frederic Jiméno (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2014), 305–24. See Chapter 5 by Léa Saint-Raymond in this volume. John Bowes, founder of the Bowes Museum, was one of Gogué’s clients; see Eric Young, Catalogue of Spanish Paintings in the Bowes Museum (Barnard Castle: Bowes Museum, 1988). See Chapter 10 by Agnès Penot in this volume. Amaya Alzaga Ruiz, ‘Ignacio León y Escosura: París, Londres y el mercado artístico norteamericano’, in Colecciones, expolio, museos y mercado artistico en España en los siglos XVIII y XIX , ed. María Dolores Antiguedad del Castillo-Olivares and Amaya Alzaga Ruiz (Madrid: E.U. Ramón Aceres, 2011), 297–315. Getty Research Institute, Goupil & Cie Archives, Goupil Stock Books, Book 2, Stock no. 208, p. 23, row 10 (G–7166), online at: http://archives.getty.edu:30008/getty_images/ digitalresources/goupil/pdfs/1379-912_v02.pdf (accessed 25 May 2020). Durand-Ruel paid 400 francs for a probable copy of The Immaculate Conception of the Escurial (Prado Museum, Madrid); it was bought for 600 francs by Goupil. Isabelle Gaëtan and Monique Nonne, ‘Chronology (1869–1905)’, in Paul Durand-Ruel and the Modern Market: Inventing Impressionism, ed. Sylvie Patry (London: National Gallery Company, 2015), 206–30. [Lugt 29861]. A second sale took place on 25–26 January 1875 in Hôtel Drouot, Paris [Lugt 35303]. Charles Yriarte, Goya: sa biographie: les fresques, les toiles, les tapisseries, les eaux-fortes et le catalogue de l‘œuvre avec cinquante planches inédites (Paris: Plon, 1867). Regrettably, my repeated requests for access to the Durand-Ruel Archives in Paris were not granted. Had I been given the opportunity to consult the stock books and potential correspondence, I would have been able to offer a more detailed analysis of Durand-Ruel’s working methods. Federico de Madrazo, Epistolario, ed. José Luis Díez, II (Madrid: Museo del Prado, 1994), 677–8, no. 303 (with a spelling mistake in the name Durand-Ruel that does not appear in the original letter), Archivo Museo del Prado Madrid, AP:20/Exp. 55, Madrazo. For an overview of Federico de Madrazo as an agent and dealer more than as a collector, see Martínez Plaza, El coleccionismo de pintura en Madrid, 171–7. For Asensio Juliá, see Mark Roglán, ‘Asensio Juliá’, in Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, ed. Sarah Lees (Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2012), 386–90. Yriarte, Goya, 137. The Edwards Sale is discussed later on in this chapter. Paul Durand-Ruel, Mémoires du marchand des Impressionnistes, ed. Paul-Louis and Flavie Durand-Ruel (Paris: Flammarion, 2014), 65. Sotheby’s New York, 8 June 2007, Important Old Master Paintings and European Works of Art, no. 270, Portrait of a Young Woman Holding Two Roses. According to the catalogue, the painting appears in the Grand Livre (1er janvier 1868–31 décembre 1872), I, fol. 122 (Durand-Ruel Archives).

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19 Durand-Ruel, Mémoires, 65. On Spanish artists and curators acting as agents and dealers, see María Dolores Jiménez Blanco, ‘El coleccionismo de arte en España. Una aproximación desde su historia y su contexto’, Cuadernos Arte y Mecenazgo 2 (2013): 31–2. 20 Nigel Glendinning, with information sent from the Durand-Ruel Archives, states that the painting was ‘sold’ to Charles Edwards in July 1868 and then to Alfred Stevens, from whom Durand-Ruel bought it again in December 1868 for 15,000 francs. See Nigel Glendinning, ‘The Authorship of Portrait of a Young Woman with a Rose, formerly ascribed to Goya’, in Hesitancy and Experimentation in Enlightenment Spain and Spanish America, ed. Ann Mackenzie and Jeremy Robbins (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), 160–1. 21 ‘Alphonse Oudry’ in Structurae, online at: https://structurae.net/en/persons/alphonseoudry (accessed 25 May 2020). 22 Obituary in Les Mondes, revue scientifique, ed. Abbé Moignot, 19, no. 11 (janvier–avril 1869): 414; Théophile Thoré, ‘Les collections particulières’, in Paris Guide, I (Paris: Librairie internationale, 1867), 547. His mansion (8 quai-de-Billy, now Avenue-deNew-York) was later demolished. 23 Galerie de feu M. Alphonse Oudry, ingénieur des Ponts et Chaussées, catalogue de tableaux anciens des écoles italienne, espagnole, hollandaise et flamande, Paris, Hôtel des ventes, 16–17 avril 1869 [Lugt 31191]. 24 Durand-Ruel, Mémoires, 64–5. The sale minutes (Archives de Paris, D42E3 52) provide the purchasers’ names and the prices; Durand-Ruel was the only dealer to obtain a discount from the auctioneer: 278,25 francs on the total of his purchases. 25 Ibid. Even if the Durand-Ruel provenance is not indicated, it is Mariana of Austria (1634–96), Queen of Spain, the version of the Prado full-length portrait, later reduced to a bust-length format, now given to the workshop of Velázquez in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acc. no. 89.15.18, online at: https://www.metmuseum.org/ art/collection/search/437872 (accessed 25 May 2020). 26 According to the sale minutes (Archives de Paris, D42E3 52), the figure is far less than the 35,000 francs quoted by Xavière Desparmet Fitz-Gerald, L’œuvre peint de Goya, II (Paris: F. de Nobele, 1928–1950), 270. 27 Durand-Ruel, Mémoires, 64–5. Virginia Brilliant, Italian, Spanish and French Paintings in the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota (Sarasota, FL: John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art and Scala Arts Publishers, 2017), 362–5. 28 Archives de Paris, D42E3 52. The prices for El Greco oscillated between 200 and 550 francs; see Véronique Gerard Powell, ‘La llegada de El Greco al mercado de arte francés’, in Colecciones, expolio, museos y mercado artistico en España en los siglos XVIII y XIX , ed. María Dolores Antiguedad del Castillo-Olivares and Amaya Alzaga Ruiz (Madrid: E.U. Ramón Aceres, 2011), 265–86. 29 Charles Yriarte, ‘Goya Lithographe’, L‘Art 2 (1877): 3–10: ‘Goya devint à la mode, quelques-unes de ses toiles passèrent les Pyrénées et vinrent échouer rue de la Paix, dans la galerie de M. Durand-Ruel. C’est là que nous revîmes La Jeune Fille à la rose que nous avions vue pour la première fois chez le Patriarche des Indes et que Sa Grandeur s’obstinait à nous présenter sous le nom de Charlotte Corday’. In 1872, he already predicted, in his lively account of the Edwards Sale, the rise of the craze on the art market for Goya; see ‘Une séance aux commissaires–priseurs (vente de la collection Edwards)’, La Vie parisienne, 12 March 1872, 204–5. 30 [Lugt 31807]. Nicholas Green, ‘Dealing in Temperaments: Economic Transformation of the Artistic Field in France during the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century’, Art History 10, no. 1 (March 1987): 59–78. The purchasers’ names and the prices appear in the sale minutes, Archives de Paris, D.42E3 53.

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31 Durand-Ruel bought it again at the Pommereul Sale (27 May 1905, no. 8 [Lugt 63440]) for 77,000 francs and sold it to Mrs Havemeyer in 1906. 32 See Chapter 3 by Julia I. Armstrong-Totten in this volume. 33 The identification of the ‘Bamberger Collection’ with that of Henri Bamberger is based on the address ‘73 rue Montaigne’, indicated in the Oudry Sale minutes for a Cuyp bought by Bamberger. In 1875, at the second Salamanca Sale, Bamberger also purchased Goya’s Portrait of Manuel Garcia, now called The Portrait of a Young Man in Brown (Fine Arts Museum, Boston) and Procession in Valencia (Foundation E.G. Bührle Collection, Zurich). 34 In 1872, at the Carlin Sale [Lugt 33147], Cándamo bought two of Goya’s 1794 pictures painted on tinplate: Death of a Picador and Sorting the Bulls (both Private Collection). 35 Access to the Durand-Ruel Archives would have revealed when Eugène Fromentin bought Ribera’s Saint John the Baptist (Private Collection, Barcelona), more about the Antwerp collector Edward Kums and the provenance of The Lady with a Fan (Portrait of Lorenza Correa, Louvre, Paris), and the name of the first buyer of Velázquez’s Portrait of Mariana de Austria (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). 36 The work was exhibited at both the Exposition des portraits du siècle (1885, no. 154), to help the École des Beaux-Arts, and the Exposition au profit des inondés du midi (1887 no. 60). The portrait remained with the same family until 2007. 37 First presented in the 7 May 1872 sale [Lugt 33173] and bought in at 1,500 francs, the bullfighting scenes were eventually sold for 465 francs on 6 December 1876 [Lugt 36890], which indicates that they were most probably ‘goyesque’ works. The painting of Saint Francis Borgia was certainly a copy of the original. 38 See Chapters 6 and 10 by Barbara Pezzini and Agnès Penot, respectively, in this volume. Furthermore, Durand-Ruel was regularly selling Old Masters, mainly of the Northern Schools. 39 See Chapter 11 by Inge Reist in this volume. 40 For an overview and some case studies, see Collecting Spanish Art: Spain’s Golden Age and America’s Gilded Age, ed. Inge Reist and José Luis Colomer (New York and Madrid: Frick Collection and CEEH, 2012). For El Greco, see El Greco comes to America: The Discovery of a Modern Old Master, ed. Inge Reist and José Luis Colomer (New York and Madrid: Frick Collection and CEEH, 2017). 41 Frances Weitzenhoffer, ‘The Creation of the Havemeyer Collection, 1875–1900’ (PhD dissertation, City University of New York, 1982); Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, Gary Tinterow, Susan Alyson Stein, Gretchen Wold and Julia Meech, eds, Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993). 42 Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen et al. eds, Splendid Legacy, 13, 222, 343; M. Dolores Jiménez Blanco, ‘Collecting Goya’, in Collecting Spanish Art, ed. Reist and Colomer, 325–45. 43 Louisine Havemeyer, Sixteen to Sixty: Memoirs of a Collector, ed. Susan Stein (New York: Ursus Press, 1993), 136. Also A. Alzaga Ruiz, ‘The Madrazos and the New York Collectors of El Greco’, in El Greco Comes to America, ed. Reist and Colomer, 91–111. 44 Havemeyer, Sixteen to Sixty, 152–5. Cassatt’s main role thereafter was to advise the Havemeyers on propositions made by dealers. 45 Ibid., 155. On Wicht’s wife, Josephine, trying to continue the transactions. 46 The dates of the trips have been deduced from correspondence and the date of some purchases. 47 Most probably recommended by his brother Raimundo living in Paris. Alzaga Ruiz, ‘The Madrazos’, 104–7, publishes correspondence between Ricardo de Madrazo and

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50

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Old Masters Worldwide Louisine Havemeyer showing how, from 1909 to 1915, Ricardo replaced Durand-Ruel as her agent in Spain. Obituary, ABC , Madrid (12 April 1906), 6. Havemeyer, Sixteen to Sixty, 315 n. 90. The peseta and the franc had approximately the same value at the time. According to Wicht’s widow, Durand-Ruel had first intended to offer 60,000 francs; see Alzaga Ruiz, ‘The Madrazos’, 98. The painting was not in the 1902 Madrid exhibition. The Havemeyers bought it in 1909; see Cooney Frelinghuysen et al., eds, Splendid Legacy, 346, no. 303; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acc. no. 29.100.6, online at: https://www.metmuseum.org/ art/collection/search/436575 (accessed 25 May 2020). It cost $50,000 (c. 300,000 francs); see Cooney Frelinghuysen et al., eds, Splendid Legacy, 15–17, 52–3, 238, 344; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acc. no. 29.200.10, online at: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436548 (accessed 25 May 2020). For the change of attribution, see Goya in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, ed. Susan Stein (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995); Juliet Wilson-Bareau, ‘Goya in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’, The Burlington Magazine 138 (1996): 95–100. Fernando Arturo Marín Valdés, ‘Aureliano de Beruete, cartas à Joaquín Sorolla’, Liño: Revista anual de historia del arte 5, no. 29 (1985): 41: ‘También ha estado Durand-Ruel que se lleva (esto es secreto) el cuadro del Greco de la Asunción y las Majas de Goya.’ He wishes to discuss this distressing matter with Sorolla in person. Havemeyer, Sixteen to Sixty, 154–5; Richard Mann, Northern European and Spanish Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago, ed. Martha Wolff (Chicago, IL: Art Institute, 2008), 54–6; Rebecca Long, ‘El Greco in Chicago’, in El Greco Comes to America, ed. Reist and Colomer, 181–201. For Goya, Catálogo de las obras de Goya expuestas en el Ministerio de Instrucción Pública y Bellas Artes, (Madrid, 1900). Also Goya 1900: Catálogo ilustrado y estudio de la exposición en el Ministerio de Instrucción Pública y Bellas Artes, II (Madrid: Dirección Gral. BB. AA. y Bienes Culturales, Instituto del Património Histórico Español, 2002). For Greco, [Salvador de Viniegra], see Catálogo ilustrado de las obras de Domenico Theotocopuli llamado El Greco (Madrid: Lacoste, 1902). The portraits, which arrived too late to be included in the 1900 exhibition catalogue, are registered as 171 and 172 in the supplement. For Doña Narcisa, see Cooney Frelinghuysen et al., eds, Splendid Legacy, 343 no. 294. For J.B. de Goicoechea, see M. Weniger, Greco, Velázquez, Goya: Spanische Malerei aus deutschen Sammlungen (Munich: Prestel, 2005), 158, 229. Gasparini (Madrid, exh. cat., 1900, no. 100) was eventually acquired by Marzell de Nemes; The Draughtman (Madrid, exh. cat., 1900, no. 99) was identified during the exhibition as Evaristo Pérez de Castro: Desparmet Fitz-Gerald, Goya, II, 43, no. 323. Nos 105 and 106. According to Xavier Salomon, ‘Tiburcio Pérez y Cuervo (1785/86– 1841), the Architect’, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acc. no. 30.95.242 (online at: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436544 accessed 25 May 2020), had been inherited by Durán‘s grandmother, Cayetana Cuervo, wife of the scholar Agustín Durán, the latter who is generally considered the owner of the paintings. Desparmet Fitz-Gerald, Goya, II, 191, no. 478. Cassirer sold it (28 November 1903) to Eduard Arnhold; see Michael Dorrmann, Eduard Arnhold, 1849–1925: Eine biographische Studie zu Unternehmer- und Mäzenatentum im Deutschen Kaiserreich (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002), 346. For the links between Paul Cassirer and Durand-

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60

61 62 63

64

65

66

67 68

69

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Ruel, see Dorothee Hansen, ‘Durand-Ruel and Germany’, in Paul Durand-Ruel and the Modern Market: Inventing Impressionism, ed. Sylvie Patry (London: National Gallery Company, 2015), 164–5. In 1912, the picture still belonged to the New York Branch (Copley Society Exhibition of Paintings by Spanish Masters, Boston, 1912 no. 68). The current hypothesis about its provenance does not take into account Durand-Ruel’s trip to Madrid; see Goya en tiempos de guerra, ed. Manuela Mena (Madrid: Prado, 2008), 230. Although the portrait seems to have been cut, the comparison with the 1900 photo is striking. This portrait had not, in fact, been exhibited in the 1900 Goya exhibition. On Portabella as the owner of the portrait, see Desparmet Fitz-Gerald, Goya, II, 94, no. 376. Ibid., 164, no. 451 [Lugt 63127]. The portrait, later acquired by Eugène Kraemer, appeared in his post-mortem sale, Paris, 28 April 1913, no. 70 [Lugt 72666]. Cooney Frelinghuysen et al., eds, Splendid Legacy, 343 no. 293, quoting the stock books in the Durand-Ruel Archives. The Portrait of General Guye is known to have been during the early twentieth century, first with Trotti in Paris and then with Knoedler in New York. It may have been entrusted at some point to Durand-Ruel. A. Rodríguez Rebollo, Las colecciones de pintura de los duques de Montpensier en Sevilla, 1866–1892 (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1985). Montpensier’s collection was divided between Antonio de Orleans and his sister, Comtesse de Paris. Not having had access to the Durand-Ruel Archives, the dating of some purchases in this article is hypothetical as it appears that there are no traces of them in the Orleans Archives, Fundación Infantes Duques de Montpensier, Sanlucar. The paintings mentioned here do not appear in the Inventario interno de pinturas del Palacio Orleans Borbón de Sanlúcar de Barrameda, AOBS, Legajo 945, Pieza 7, c. 1925. I am grateful to Manuel Ródriguez Díaz, Director of the Orleans Archives, for his help with this matter. The Comtesse de Paris had sold paintings by Zurbarán in Paris using photos; see Veronique Gerard Powell, Autour de Zurbarán: catalogue raisonné des peintures espagnoles du Musée de Grenoble (Paris: RMN, 2000), 42. Archivo Ruiz Vernacci, Fototeca del Patrimonio Artístico, Madrid. They appear in the Laurent catalogues, published in 1872. Colin Eisler, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian (Oxford: Phaidon, 1977), 198–201, quotes a letter written from Paris by Mary Cassatt to Mrs Havemeyer, alluding to the painting made famous by its inclusion in Manuel Cossio’s El Greco (Madrid, 1908), where Antonio de Orleans is still mentioned as the owner. Johann Georg von Hohenzollern and Peter Klaus Schuster, eds, Manet bis van Gogh: Hugo von Tschudi und der Kampf um die Moderne (Munich: Prestel, 1996); Javier Barón, El Greco y la pintura moderna (Madrid: Museo del Prado, 2014). Desparmet Fitz-Gerald, Goya, II, nos 399–40; Paul Gassier and Juliet Wilson, Francisco Goya (Fribourg: Office du Livre, 1970), nos 789–92; Juliet Wilson Bareau, ‘Goya in the Metropolitan Museum’, 101–2; also a complete bibliography and summary of the question in the Metropolitan Museum’s entry for acc. no. 51.70, online at: https://www. metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436551 (accessioned 25 May 2020). Wilson Bareau in Manet/Velázquez, 411–12, no. 6; Mar Borobia, Museo ThyssenBornemisza, Pintura Antigua (Madrid: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2009), 536.

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72 Mena, ed., Goya en tiempos de Guerra, 248, no. 64. 73 Nothing is known of the painting between 1900 and 1982; see B. Navarrete Prieto, Murillo y su estela en Sevilla (Sevilla: Ayuntamiento, 2017), 218.

8

Authority and Expertise in the Old Master Market: Bode and Duveen Catherine B. Scallen

In the early twentieth century, the most successful Old Master dealers were those who could establish connections with public institutions and museum professionals, as well as with private scholars and connoisseurs. This chapter explores the nuances and challenges created by these connections through the case study of two of the most influential figures in the early-twentieth-century Old Master market, Wilhelm von Bode (1845–1929) and Sir Joseph (‘Joe’) Duveen (1869–1939), who were deeply entwined for twenty-five years (Figs  8.1 and 8.2).1 The autocratic German museum director was a significant participant in the art market from the late 1870s to 1929, through acquiring works for the Berlin museums and advising private collectors; his multiple roles in the market led to complex relationships with art dealers as explicated in numerous publications.2 Duveen, a generation younger, helped to transform the Old Master art market, above all in the service of American clients, and employed many experts to do so.3 Joe Duveen has also received increased scholarly attention of late, in ways that have helped to correct the older literature’s often two-dimensional depiction of him as either a buffoon or a ruthless and unethical dealer. Indeed, Duveen was among the shrewdest of dealers, and in his outstanding skills in public relations and customer service, anticipated the current fascination with the concept of marketing a ‘brand’.4 The Bode–Duveen connection, however, is still under-studied.5 There are two reasons for this lack of scrutiny. Joe Duveen was involved in the Old Master market only from the early 1900s, and thus the majority of his dealing in this field took place after the period when Bode was an active buyer of noteworthy paintings and sculptures for the Berlin collections. Second, until recently, and with the great exception of the Bernard Berenson–Duveen contractual relationship for the sale of Italian Renaissance paintings, neither scholars working on Duveen himself nor those researching the careers of the connoisseurs who worked with Duveen, have examined such interactions.6 Yet, the Bode–Duveen relationship was a significant one, as was first discovered when researching the history of Rembrandt connoisseurship.7 Bode was the dominant 147

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Fig. 8.1 Photographer unknown, Wilhelm von Bode, 1925. Photograph by the author.

Fig. 8.2 Photographer unknown, Sir Joseph Duveen, 1920s. Photograph by the author.

Rembrandt connoisseur well into the twentieth century, an area of sales Duveen became interested in with the firm’s turn towards the Old Masters. Their relationship, however, went well beyond the arena of Rembrandt connoisseurship. The extensive correspondence between Bode and Duveen preserved in Berlin and Los Angeles attests to the depth and range of their interactions.8

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The Powerful Synergy of Market and Scholarship What did Duveen and Bode have to gain from their affiliation? Because of his professional and institutional authority as a museum-based scholar, Bode helped to legitimize Duveen’s status as a new dealer in Old Masters. This was crucial because most American collectors, coming from a culture where art collecting on a widescale basis was only a recent pursuit, wanted the opinions of experts before committing to buying expensive works of art.9 Bode was not just the preeminent authority for Rembrandt paintings and other Netherlandish pictures; he was also recognized as the premier expert for Italian Renaissance sculpture. He was also an important resource for finding material to buy in Germany and sell elsewhere, as he knew all the significant collectors and art dealers throughout German-speaking lands, and maintained extensive art market connections in the UK and in Italy and France as well. Particularly after the First World War, the firm of Duveen Brothers recognized the possibilities inherent in Germany to buy art, given the financial strain individuals and firms were then under. Indeed, there were discussions about selling works of art from the exiled Kaiser’s collections and even from the Berlin museums. Bode’s importance for the Duveen firm is evidenced by the fact that, after about 1910, much of the correspondence with Bode was conducted by Joe Duveen himself. By comparison, Bode’s ‘lieutenant’ in Berlin, Max J. Friedländer, was handled instead by Duveen’s nephew, Armand Lowengard. Duveen, in turn, helped Bode to retain his role as a leading authority whose opinions were respected among collectors and other museum professionals. Furthermore, while Bode could not afford to buy from Duveen (especially after the First World War), the carefully timed gifts of works of art that Duveen donated to the new Kaiser-FriedrichMuseum in Berlin shored up Bode’s reputation as a successful museum director. Bode had insisted on such gifts from other dealers in the past when he had provided expertise for them or connected them with prospective clients. That they did so was not simply because of Bode’s personal value to them, great though it was, but because of the value of the Berlin museums as clients. With the greatly reduced opportunities for the Berlin Museums to buy during the Weimar Republic, such gifts began to dwindle. Duveen’s contributions to the Berlin collections allowed Bode to preserve his self-image (and perhaps his image with others in the art world) as an important ‘player’ in an international art market. And Duveen’s contributions to Berlin were cleverly made in such a way as to seem less overtly transactional than had been true with other dealers and more like the ‘spontaneous’ generosity he showed to especially good clients of the firm. Duveen’s strategic use of gifts for his clients has been remarked on by other scholars; that he treated Bode as another important client was one of the keys to his success with the wily old museum man.10 That both were brilliant at maintaining numerous relationships with dealers, collectors and museum professionals in Europe, the UK and North America, suggests a kind of kinship between them. The vast size of their respective extant correspondence stands as witness to their nearly constant contact with the art world at large.11 Thus, over time, and despite their differences of personality, background and ethnicity, their working partnership as equals in different realms capitalized on their complementary expertise and growing mutual respect.

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Even if Joe Duveen had purchased the Portrait of Lady Louisa Manners by John Hoppner at Christie’s in 1901, it was with the purchases from two major collections, the Oskar Hainauer Collection in 1906 and the Rodolphe Kann Collection in 1907, that Duveen Brothers entered the field of Old Master paintings in a systematic fashion.12 These purchases, spearheaded by Joe, were a blow to Bode, who had advised both collectors when they were building their collections. Bode particularly hoped that Kann would bequeath his collection to the new Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum. The great irony of this situation is that Bode was largely inspired in his hopes by the generosity of American collectors towards the new art museums founded in the United States. This was a new model of philanthropy, and Bode was quick to see the advantage of it.13 Yet, the very collections Bode hoped to obtain for Berlin were purchased by Duveen, dismantled and sold primarily to American collectors. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the correspondence between Bode and the Duveen firm was largely businesslike and quite cool for a number of years. There is an intriguing exception in the early correspondence, in 1907, when Joe wrote to Bode that he hoped for Bode’s assistance in working with a potential new client in Berlin, Eduard Simon, whom Bode advised. Duveen stated: I sincerely hope, Dr. Bode, that you will try and help me with him as much as possible. I may mention that some of your gentlemen in the Museum have not done all they could help us in selling any of the pictures in Berlin; far from it, they have told people and buyers that Duveens’ prices are too high and ridiculous . . . I am feeling very hurt about it.14

This aggressive, peevish tone was one that Duveen occasionally took with other experts, but was surely a rarity in Bode’s past experience. From late 1907 into early 1909, there was considerable epistolary exchange over a Bellini Crucifixion (Louvre, Paris) in the Kann Collection that was sold by the Duveen firm to Berlin, ostensibly at cost as a consolation prize for the lost Kann paintings (Fig. 8.3).15 Unfortunately, while Bode accepted this painting, the museum trustees and German emperor did not want it, and Bode informed the firm that he himself would be held accountable for the purchase price.16 While Duveen wrote to Bode that he was astonished by the museum’s treatment of their long-time official, he also maintained that if the Bellini was returned to the firm they would not be able to sell the painting either, ‘because the whole world knows you bought it and they would naturally doubt this picture’.17 By the end of the year, Bode believed he had found a buyer for the painting and Duveen, perhaps relieved in the end, declared in a confidential, handwritten letter of January 1910: My dear Friend! In answer to your letter about the Bellini picture I am so pleased to hear that you are satisfied that this unfortunate affair has terminated so well . . . in regard to what you may obtain for it above the 2500 pounds, instead of buying something for the museum please buy something for yourself, for really we do not feel inclined to give anything to the Museum. We had much rather you bought something pretty for your own home.18

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Fig. 8.3 Giovanni Bellini, Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist, c. 1465–70. Oil on panel, 71.2 x 62.4 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photograph by the author.

Clearly, in 1910 Duveen did not yet fully understand Bode, who never hesitated to solicit works of art directly from dealers or at least donations to buy them for the Berlin collections, but not for himself.19 Despite his dismay at losing the collection, Bode was willing to play ‘middleman’ to help sell some of the Kann paintings to collectors Bode advised. In a letter of October 1910, for instance, he discussed price strategies with Duveen: ‘I told my friends the prices you ask, 20% above the cost price, as they all like to make smaller offers.’20 But positive results needed to be acknowledged through generosity to the museum. Unsurprisingly, despite his assertion in early 1910, Duveen would continue to give works of art to the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum as his way of ‘compensating’ Bode. A personal breakthrough came in late 1911, when Bode visited the United States for the second time. Writing to Joe’s brother Louis in December, Bode commented on the hearty reception he had received in the United States, ‘especially by your brother Joseph’, while in a second letter he thanked Joe for the chair he had sent onto the ship for Bode’s voyage home.21 Duveen was by now treating the older man as he would a client, not a paid expert, and this new strategy clearly worked. Perhaps it is no coincidence that this strategy took effect only shortly before Bernard Berenson (1865– 1959) signed a contract with Duveen to work with him as a connoisseur, scout and liaison for a number of important clients whom Duveen Brothers wished to cultivate.22 Bode was thereby essentially displaced by Berenson as a connoisseur of Italian painting,

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the biggest Old Master market for Duveen in North America, but remained valuable to the firm in many other ways. It is fair to say that their relationship from 1907 to 1914 was an evolving one. Bode passed judgement on numerous Italian busts and diverse paintings sent to his museum office in Berlin; he provided expert opinions on photographs for Duveen’s clients; and, for the most sought-after collectors, occasionally he would write a personalized letter. But this was not the full extent of Bode’s services for the Duveen firm. Bode loved the great game of the art market and was willing to weigh in directly. In a July 1911 response to a Duveen letter inquiring about a Rembrandt painting coming up for sale in Hamburg, Bode warned the dealers that: ‘in the Weber sale there are three pictures under Rembrandt’s name; the biggest is not by Rembrandt (woman taken in adultery) but a copy. It is in my book but as rather very doubtful’.23 Bode’s role of scout was just as important to Duveen as his role of authenticator. When the so-called ‘Steengracht Rembrandt’ (‘The Toilet of Bathsheba’, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) came on the market in 1913, Joe wanted to know if Bode considered it ‘an exceptionally fine Picture. I have, of course, read your article in your great work on Rembrandt, but thought I would like to have a further opinion from you today.’24 Why was this so important? This was exactly the kind of Dutch painting that would attract one of the firm’s best New York clients, Benjamin Altman, who had first bought Chinese porcelain from Joe’s uncle, Henry Duveen, before purchasing Old Master paintings from them.25 Indeed, Bode, in full understanding of the stakes, responded with a letter describing the painting himself as ‘exceptionally fine’; it became one of Altman’s last purchases when Uncle Henry Duveen bid on the painting for him at auction.26 Altman died only a few months later and Bode wrote to the firm that: ‘it will be a great satisfaction for you that Mr. Altman left all his marvellous collections, made entirely by you, to the Metropolitan Museum’.27 Joe lost no time in responding that if the firm of Duveen said such a thing about their work with Altman ‘it would be infra dig [beneath one’s dignity] to even appear to take advantage of such a solemn occasion to advertise ourselves’.28 However, he suggested that Bode could ‘voluntarily’ make a statement to several New York newspapers: ‘I know there is no one who feels greater interest and pleasure in watching such a building up as yourself.’ Bode made clear that his museum position would not allow him to do this, but that the firm could use the sentence as they saw fit.29 It was typical of Duveen to push things to their limits with experts (and perhaps even with clients), but Bode knew as well as Duveen how the game was played.

Duveen and Bode: A Developing Friendship While the Bode–Duveen correspondence was largely suspended during the First World War, it picked up again in late 1919, from which point it had a notably different, warmer tone. Duveen was knighted that same year, hence Bode now referred to him as ‘Dear Sir Joseph’ in his salutations, while Duveen was solicitous of the elderly Bode, whom he frequently now addressed as ‘My Dear Dr. Bode’. Joe visited Bode in Berlin

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near the end of 1919, and from then on took the lead in attempting to reconcile the German, English, and American art worlds.30 He worked to have Bode reinstated on the Consultative Committee of the prestigious Burlington Magazine and promoted various projects to rehabilitate Bode’s international reputation, which had been maimed, along with Germany’s, because of the war.31 While Joe was always committed to augmenting his reputation as a magnanimous sponsor, this was clearly not his only motivation. It appeared that Berlin could again be a major art market in the aftermath of the war (hence the visit there by Duveen in 1919) and Bode’s name and opinions were still extremely useful to the firm. As a result, the state of Bode’s international reputation was a matter of commercial consequence to Duveen Brothers. In May 1920, Joe wrote to his brother Ernest about a disputed attribution of a small bronze to Benvenuto Cellini: I wired you a few weeks ago that there is not the slightest doubt in the world that the whole of this bronze has been made by the same hand and that all of it is of the period. I certainly have no doubt in my mind and cannot understand how experts like Durlacher and others could be so mistaken. Now as this Bronze will very likely become the property of Mr. Henry Goldman, who is a client and friend of mine here, I want to have my judgment confirmed if possible by Dr. Bode. He is the only man whose opinion I would accept and whatever judgment he passed I would unhesitatingly defer to.32

Duveen’s insistence that here he would defer to Bode was indeed wise: Bode’s canonical judgement on Italian bronzes could then back up Duveen’s own expertise, and be passed onto the client. Bode did approve of it and the bronze went to Goldman, while around the same time a little gilded bronze figure of Saint John entered the Berlin collection.33 Duveen’s personal solicitousness towards Bode was made clear in several ways in 1921. In a September letter to Bode, he discussed recent visits of Americans to Berlin: [T]hey are all unanimous in agreeing with me that Dr. Bode is the greatest man in Germany . . . I also hear that you complain sometimes of poverty, but knowing you so well, I really believe that after all it is not a serious complaint with you . . . I think if you found a beautiful bronze in some small shop, which you could buy for a few Marks for your Museum, you would, if necessary, starve for a week. Am I not right?34

Despite the seemingly cavalier tone of this letter, Duveen did understand how serious Bode’s financial situation really was, as indicated by a significant act of largesse in 1921. The already desperate economic situation of Weimar Germany prevented the government from finishing museum buildings or acquiring art, and Bode chose to sell his private library at auction in order to donate the proceeds of the sale to the acquisition funds for the Berlin museums.35 A flurry of activity, involving Duveen Brothers and outside associates, took place before the November auction of this renowned scholarly library, with Joe Duveen even asking for help in bidding up the cost of the collection. After Duveen’s successful purchase of the library at auction, Bode wrote to:

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express myself more warmly how I owe to you, Sir Joseph, foremost of all, the so generous and overwhelming offer of ‘American friends’ to buy my library and present it to me again. To you alone I am indebted . . . for the great result of the auction.36

Was this solicitousness so worthwhile in terms of its results? It certainly was. As a senior member of the Paris Duveen branch of the Duveen firm wrote back to New York in 1926: Dr. Bode is still an important figure in the Art World as everyone in Germany and indeed all over Europe call [sic] to see him and he is most useful to us as practically everything is shown to him for his opinion. We mention this as it is really important not to make detractory statements concerning him as they come back to him.

The letter continues about a possible purchase: We promised him . . . if we bought the picture, we would give a present to the Museum. This is the only way of keeping in with him. He does not want anything for himself, but he is always delighted to have something for the Museum and there is no doubt that he expects this.37

This letter provides important information about Bode’s approach to compensation by art dealers. To date, research undertaken by the author has uncovered only one reference to Bode personally receiving any money from Duveen for his work, in Duveen Brothers letters from 1928, only eleven months before Bode’s death.38 Tellingly, the correspondence concerned how to list the payment to Bode in the firm’s account books. Bode’s goal was to enrich the museum, not himself, despite his personal impoverishment in the Weimar inflationary era. Was this relationship always profitable (in various senses of the word) for the Duveen Brothers firm? To this question, the answer is not altogether positive. In one notoroious case, the ageing Bode inadvertently led Joe Duveen and his lieutenants astray in an embarrassing fashion. The letter about the possible purchase in 1926 concerned a supposedly unknown Vermeer painting, The Smiling Girl (Fig. 8.4). This painting, later proven to be a very new forgery from about 1925, was a misjudgement by both Bode and Duveen. Jonathan Lopez has convincingly suggested that this fake was made by notorious forger Han van Meegeren to appeal to Bode through its resemblance to a Vermeer in Braunschweig, where Bode had grown up.39 Bode, weaker of eye in 1926 but with the strong desire to remain an art world insider, was hooked, and notified Duveen Brothers. Joe promptly sent his trusted lieutenants Edward Fowles and Armand Lowengard from Paris to Berlin to see it. As Lopez recounted, while they were not enthusiastic about it, they both believed it to be genuine. After it was brought to Amsterdam for Frederick Schmidt Degener, Director of the Rijksmuseum, to examine, and only after he agreed about the painting’s authenticity did Duveens acquire it, selling it to Andrew W. Mellon in 1932 (it now languishes in storage at the National Gallery of Art, Washington). Duveen was appropriately cautious in this case and weighed opinions of several experts, both museum and gallery based, before making

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Fig. 8.4 Imitator of Johannes Vermeer, The Smiling Girl, c. 1925. Oil on canvas, 41 x 31.8 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington.

his own decision – alas, one that would prove embarrassing to all the experts in this case, although long after the deaths of Bode and Duveen.

Bode on Duveen: ‘The Dictator of Art Dealers’ Duveen and his staff respected the German scholar and museum man, but what of Bode’s attitude towards Duveen? The firm of Duveen Brothers firm merits only a passing mention in Bode’s posthumously published memoir, even compared to other art dealers.40 Perhaps Bode did not want the world to know how closely he worked with Joe Duveen in his later career. Additionally, Bode’s combative personality often led to his having complex and even somewhat contradictory responses to his many professional acquaintances. In a 1925 review of an exhibition of Old Masters from private collections in Berlin that Bode helped to organize, one indication of his attitude can be gleaned: Of Rembrandt himself there are only two pictures of his first period, a third picture that we hoped to exhibit has been snapped away practically under our noses by Sir Joseph Duveen ‘the Dictator of Art Dealers’. Sir Joe does not worry about the

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fancies of art historians; he creates himself history of art. He has bought the Raphael from the Huldschinsky Collection for about a million marks, although his factotum the art critic B. Berenson, declared the picture to be a copy . . .41

This passage reveals Bode’s significant frustration and sarcastic temperament, and yet simultaneously a certain admiration for Duveen’s success, as well as satisfaction that Duveen did not always take the opinion of his other major expert, Bernard Berenson, as the final word.42 Balancing the relationships that Duveen Brothers had with Bode and Berenson, longtime antagonists yet both crucial experts for the firm, was surely not easy for Joe Duveen in particular.43 Perhaps even Bode recognized that he had met his match in Sir Joseph Duveen. The Duveen firm was among the first outside of Berlin to hear of Bode’s death through Max Friedländer, who wrote to Lowengard in Paris on 1 March 1929 that: ‘Dr. Bode died this morning. I am deeply shocked and grieved by this terrible loss.’44 From Paris Joe was cabled in New York the next day, having already arranged to send a memorial wreath.45 Friedländer wrote to Lowengard on 9 March, stating: On the 5th we buried Bode, after a dignified and suitable funeral service in the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum. Please thank Sir Joseph for his telegram and for the magnificent wreath. I know how much he and all his collaborators in your firm esteemed our departed friend and how often you all supported him, in carrying out his plans. I also know how warmly Bode always recognized this. The loss to the Berlin Museums is a heavy one, with him, their great epoch is finished . . .46

Conclusion In the end, it was the shared benefit of their interactions that should be stressed. The Old Master market in the early twentieth century was built upon personal networks, and the role of the expert connoisseur was essential within this market. The Duveen firm needed Bode to attest to the authenticity and quality of Old Masters they wanted to sell, especially to American clients, and to find important works in Europe to bring onto the market. Bode sought to preserve his long-established authority as a scholar and his reputation as a major force in the art market through his contacts with Duveen. Nonetheless, while it started out as an alliance of convenience only, the relationship between Wilhelm von Bode and Joe Duveen ended as one of mutual respect and achievement.

Notes 1

My thanks to the conveners of the conference ‘Negotiating Art: Dealers and Museums, 1855–2015’, held at the National Gallery, London, 1–2 April 2016, for which this essay was first prepared.

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In the last quarter of a century, a number of scholars have investigated Bode’s connections with art dealers as well as with museum patrons. Essential studies on Bode’s relations with art dealers include Barbara Paul, ‘ “Das Kollektionieren ist die edelste aller Leidenschaften!” Wilhelm von Bode und das Verhaltnis zwischen Museum, Kunsthandel und Privatsammlertum’, Kritische Berichte 21, no. 3 (1993): 41–64; Jeremy Warren, ‘Bode and the British’, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 38 (1996): 121–42; M. J. Ripps, ‘A Faustian Bargain? Charles Sedelmeyer, Wilhelm Bode, and the Expansion of Rembrandt’s Painted Corpus, 1883–1914’, in The Challenge of the Object: 33rd Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art, ed. G. U. Großmann and P. Kruitsch, Nuremberg, 15–20 July 2012, II (Nuremberg: Germanisches Nationalmuseum, 2013), 745–7; M. J. Ripps, ‘The London Picture Trade and Knoedler & Co.: Supplying Dutch Old Masters to America, 1900–1914’, in British Models of Art Collecting and the American Response: Reflections Across the Pond, ed. Inge Reist (Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014), 163–80. The most recent publications include Paul Tucker, ed., A Connoisseur and His Clients: The Correspondence of Charles Fairfax Murray with Frederic Burton, Wilhelm Bode and Julius Meyer, 1867–1914 (London: Walpole Society, 2017); Patrizia Cappellini, ‘The Art Dealer and the Devil: Remarks on the Relationship of Elia Volpi and Wilhelm von Bode’, in Dealing Art on Both Sides of the Atlantic, 1860–1940, ed. Lynn Catterson (Boston, MA: Brill, 2017), 181–202. An important conference on the topic was ‘Wilhelm von Bode and the Art Market’, Institute for Art History of the University of Bern, 8–9 November 2018. I am working on a book about the relationship between Joseph Duveen, Duveen Brothers and three German art historians whose scholarly opinions were important in North America, namely Max J. Friedländer, W.R. Valentiner and Wilhelm von Bode. See, for example, the still widely cited and entertaining, although not always accurate, Samuel N. Behrman, Duveen: The Story of the Most Spectacular Art Dealer of All Time (New York: Random House, 1952; reprinted in later editions) and Edward Fowles, Memories of Duveen Brothers, ed. Colin Simpson (New York: Harper Collins, 1976). Meryle Secrest, Duveen: A Life in Art (Knopf: New York, 2004), takes Duveen more seriously, but does not really explore the dealer’s connections with scholars other than Bernard Berenson. For more on Duveen and, in particular, his importance in the art market for Old Masters in America, see Cynthia Saltzman, Old Masters, New World: America’s Raid on Europe’s Great Pictures (New York: Viking, 2008) and Flaminia Gennari Santori, The Melancholy of Masterpieces: Old Master Paintings in America, 1900–1914 (Milan: Cinque Continenti, 2004); whereas Shelley M. Bennett, The Art of Wealth: The Huntingtons in the Gilded Age (San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, 2013), provides an invaluable, detailed account of one example of Duveen’s elaborate and relentless engagement with his major clients. The relationship of Bode and the Duveen firm was discussed briefly and cogently (although negatively) by Tilmann von Stockhausen, Gemäldegalerie Berlin: Die Geschichte ihrer Erwerbungspolitik, 1830–1904 (Berlin: Nicolai 2000), 135. For Berenson and Duveen, see Colin Simpson, Artful Partners: Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen (New York: Macmillan, 1986) and the more recent and scholarly account in Rachel Cohen, Bernard Berenson: A Life in the Picture Trade (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013). Still essential for any discussion of this relationship is the two-volume biography of Berenson by Ernest Samuels, Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Connoisseur (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1979) and especially Ernest Samuels (with Jayne Newcomer Samuels), Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Legend

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12 13 14

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Old Masters Worldwide (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1987). Bode’s engagement with Duveen has not yet been explored in detail. For example, not much is made of this relationship in Meryle Secrest, Duveen: A Life in Art (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004). One exception to the general neglect of the Duveen’s authorities is Simon Elsen, Der Kunstkenner: Max J. Friedländer: Biografishe Skizzen (Cologne: Buchnadlung Walther König, 2016). Catherine B. Scallen, Rembrandt, Reputation, and the Practice of Connoisseurship (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004). The Duveen firm’s archive is in the Special Collections at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; the Bode–Duveen correspondence can be consulted online at: https:// www.getty.edu/research/tools/guides_bibliographies/duveen/ (accessed 25 May 2020). While both sides of the correspondence are mostly found in this archive, some letters from Duveen to Bode can be found only among Bode’s papers in Berlin in the ‘Nachlass Bode’ in the Zentral Archiv of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. On the perceived insecurity of American collectors and their particular reliance on experts, see Catherine B. Scallen, ‘Wilhelm von Bode and Collecting in America’, in Holland’s Golden Age in America: Collecting the Art of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Hals, ed. Esmée Quodbach (University Park, PA: Frick Collection and Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014), 64. For a salient example, see Chapter 12 by Jelena Todorović in this volume. See Jeremy Warren’s enlightening discussion of Bode’s many relationships in the UK in Warren, ‘Bode and the British’. As Warren stated: ‘One of the most remarkable achievements was his consummate skill in maintaining what can only be described as control over such a large number of people, even by correspondence from distant Berlin,’ 125. On these purchases, see Stockhausen, Gemäldegalerie Berlin; Scallen, Rembrandt, ch. 5. See, for example, Bode’s comments on this new kind of philanthropy in his article, ‘Die amerikanischen Gefahr im Kunsthandel’, Kunst und Künstler 5 (1907): 6. Letter from Joseph Duveen to Bode, 11 December 1906, IV/Nachlass Bode 6163, Duveen Brothers, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Zentral Archiv (hereafter, SMB-ZA), IV/NL Bode 6163. Bode’s response, if any, has apparently not survived. The Crucifixion by Giovanni Bellini is now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris; see Davide Gasparatto, ed., Giovanni Bellini: Landscapes of Faith in Renaissance Venice (Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2017), 70–2. See, for example, SMB-ZA, IV/NL Bode 6163, 27 December 1907, 8 January 1908. Ibid., 6 October 1908. Ibid., 16 October 1908. Ibid., 5 January 1910, original emphasis. Bode stated in a letter of 30 April 1910 that: ‘Professor Volpi’ (Elia Volpi) of Florence had bought it. The painting is now in Paris, in the Louvre, acc. no. R.F. 1970–39. For a contemporary account of Bode’s tactics, see Barbara Pezzini’s discussion of a 1908 short story by Robert Ross, author and art dealer, ‘The Value and Price of the Renaissance: Robert Ross and the Satire on Connoisseurship’, in La storiae lacritica: atti della giornata di studi per festeggiare Antonino Caleca, ed. Lorenzo Carletti (Pisa: Pacini, 2016), 169–75. By way of example, see Bode’s letter of 23 February 1911, asking for a painting as a present in his name ‘as you promised me occasionally such a present, when you bought through me the fine portrait of Hendrikje by Rembrandt from Mr. Leper a year ago, which you sold to Mr. Altman’, Getty Research Institute

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20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30

31

32 33 34 35 36

37 38

39

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(hereafter GRI), Duveen Brothers Archive (hereafter DBA), series II.I, box 432, reel 2, folder 2. Throughout this essay, I refer to the firm’s typed copies of Bode’s letters. Bode sometimes wrote in English, other times in German; those in German were translated before they were typed. SMB-ZA, IV/NL Bode 6163, 2 October 1910. Ibid., 5 and 18 December 1911. Cohen, Bernard Berenson, 183. GRI/DBA, Folder 2, 7 July 1911, original emphasis. SMB-ZA, IV/NL Bode 6163, 19 April 1913, original emphasis. On Altman’s collecting of Dutch paintings, see Esmée Quodbach, ‘The Age of Rembrandt. Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 65, no. 1 (2007): 30–5. Francis Haskell, ‘The Benjamin Altman Bequest’, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 3 (1970): 259–80, evaluated the relationship between the Duveen firm and Altman. GRI/DBA, Folder 2, 1 May 1913. Ibid., 23 October 1913. Ibid., 6 November 1913. Ibid., 20 November 1913. On Joe Duveen’s visit to Berlin, see SMB-ZA, IV/NL Bode 6163, 4 November 1919. For his efforts to bring Bode back into the art historical world of the US and Britain, see, among others, his letters dated 2 August and 4 November 1920. Bode had left The Burlington Magazine’s Consultative Committee in 1910, after disagreements about the authenticity of a bust of Flora he had acquired for Berlin and attributed to Leonardo da Vinci but which others associated with the journal considered a modern forgery, which proved to be the case. GRI/DBA, Series II.I, Box 432, Reel 2, Folder 3, 14 May 1920. Ibid., l4 June 1920. SMB-ZA, IV/NL Bode 6163, 29 September 1921, original emphasis. The ostensible reason for the sales was that the German government lodged other people in Bode’s house and he no longer had room to house his books. See GRI/DBA, Folder 3, internal letters and telegrams of 18, 26, 27 and 28 November 1921; Bode’s letter of 10 December 1921. The library was not returned to Bode; instead, it was donated to the Detroit Institute of Arts, where Bode’s protégé, W. R. Valentiner, became director in 1923, after having served as adviser to the museum for acquisitions. Valentiner was another important specialist working with Duveen Brothers. Ibid., 27 March 1926. Ibid., 27 April 1928; the New York Duveen office asked the Paris branch’s accounting department if a payment to Dr Bode from March ‘cannot be regarded as a business expense, representing payment for the opinions Dr. Bode gives us from time to time?’ The response of 8 May stated that the payment ‘has been charged by us as a business expense and not to Sir Joseph Duveen’s personal account’. The fact that this question had to be posed at all indicates that there was no precedent at the firm for such payments being made to Bode. Jonathan Lopez, The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008), 64–9. While Lopez described a payment to Bode as a ‘generous present’ for Bode having found this painting, there is no evidence that Bode actually kept the payment rather than giving it to the Berlin museums.

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40 Wilhelm von Bode, Mein Leben, ed. Thomas Gaehtgens and Barbara Paul (Berlin: Nicolai, 1997). 41 GRI/DBA, Folder 3, 26 January 1926, the firm’s translation of part of ‘Alte Meister aus Berliner Privatbesitz’, sent to the New York office. 42 The painting is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, as a copy after Raphael, acc. no. 49.7.12. 43 On Bode and Berenson’s long, competitive relationship, see David Alan Brown, ‘Bode and Berenson: Berlin and Boston’, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 38 (1996): 101–6. 44 GRI/DBA, Folder 3, 1 March 1929. 45 Ibid., 2 March 1929. 46 Ibid., 9 March 1929.

9

Scholar, Dealer and Museum Man: Robert Langton Douglas in the International Old Master Market Imogen Tedbury

In a book that is much concerned with the developing professional role of the dealer within the art market for Old Masters during the last two centuries, this chapter reflects on the permanence of the ‘agent’ even at the time of growth in high-profile businesses at the start of the twentieth century, and the continuance well into that century of a traditional hybrid art professional, who was part scholar, part museum professional and part dealer. Robert Langton Douglas (1864–1951) epitomized such a type. Erstwhile chaplain in the Church of England, Professor of History at the University of Adelaide, Australia, Staff Captain in the War Office during the First World War, Director of the National Gallery of Ireland, and scholar of Italian Medieval and Early Renaissance painting with a special expertise in the art of Siena, he turned to art dealing when he could not afford to educate his sons with the salary he was making as an art historian.1 Douglas was ambitious. He strove to acquire stock and present himself as a competitor to the larger firms that were dominating the market around 1900: Agnew’s, Knoedler and Duveen.2 However, he lacked the necessary capital to buy valuable Old Master paintings outright, and his clients often and therefore, rather than purchasing works from Douglas, his clients often bought works through him as an agent, in which role he sourced works, negotiated with clients, and arranged for transportation and insurance. In his adopted modus operandi, Douglas saw Charles Fairfax Murray (1849–1916) as a role model.3 As noted elsewhere in this book, Murray had acted in the previous century as an agent for the National Gallery in London, Agnew’s and numerous private clients in Italy; many of the early Italian paintings in British private and public collections had passed through his hands.4 Indeed, thanks to the efforts of Murray, Britain had become a prime repository for early Italian paintings – a ‘hunting ground’, as Douglas termed it.5 Although there were still treasures to be found in Italy, Douglas chose to operate as an agent negotiating for works in Britain, soliciting help from Murray to locate paintings that had sunk from view. In September 1903, for example, Douglas asked Murray for assistance in discovering the current whereabouts of the 161

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surviving fragments from Ugolino di Nerio’s 1320s Santa Croce Altarpiece, a request which was doubtless related to the fact that he was at the time preparing a new edition of Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s History of Painting in Italy for the publisher John Murray.6 The remains of the Santa Croce altarpiece had entered Britain in the early nineteenth century, but had been scattered among several private collections since the death of their first British owner, William Young Ottley (1777–1836).7 Charles Fairfax Murray’s biographer David Elliott interprets a fragmentary surviving exchange between Douglas and Murray as one of pupil and mentor, although the two men seem to have fallen out within a couple of years of their introduction.8 By this date, as the careers of Bernard Berenson (1865–1959), Frederick Mason Perkins (1874–1955) and Herbert Horne (1864–1916) attest, it was commonplace for scholars to advise on acquisitions, and to buy and sell themselves, not least in the field of Italian Renaissance art.9 Museum directors, such as Wilhelm von Bode (1845–1929) also engaged in such pursuits, as Catherine Scallen has noted in her chapter on Bode in this book. However, Douglas was unusual among his peers for actively attempting to broaden his expertise and his prospects beyond early Italian painting, as the following letter to Bode in 1905 attests: I cannot live upon the early Italian schools alone. There are so few good pictures of that school to be bought and so few purchasers. Moreover, the prices of early Italian pictures are very low. Mr Fairfax Murray once told me himself that, for this very reason, he had to neglect the early Italians & to turn his attention to Dutch, late Flemish, & English pictures.10

Despite his ambitions to compete with the big players on the international market for Old Masters, Douglas found it difficult to escape his scholarly reputation as an expert in Sienese painting, which cast him in the role of a specialist agent in early Italian art, perfectly placed to find paintings that had been in British collections since the previous century.

The Transition from Scholarship to Dealing Douglas was one of a group of art historians Edward Hutton later referred to fondly as the ‘old Sienese gang’.11 Douglas’ History of Siena (1902) was one of several studies of Siena published between 1900 and 1903 that utilized recent archival discoveries published in the Sienese journal Bollettino senese di storia patria.12 Douglas’ History, his 1899 monograph on Fra Angelico, and his appointment as the new editor of Crowe and Cavalcaselle, contributed to his standing as a scholar of early Italian painting.13 In June 1903, Douglas’ name was suggested in connection with curating an exhibition of Sienese art at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, intended to coincide with the much larger Mostra dell’antica arte senese organized by Corrado Ricci at the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, for 1904.14 Despite, or perhaps because of, Douglas’ infamous skirmish with Bernard Berenson in the second half of 1903, over the rediscovery of the Sienese quattrocento painter Sassetta, he did not become involved with the Italian exhibition but remained

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curator for the London show. In the latter capacity, he was charged with seeking out loans, negotiating with collectors and writing the scholarly catalogue.15 By 1904, a year widely regarded as Siena’s annus mirabilis, Douglas’ reputation as an expert in Sienese painting was sealed. During these years, Douglas began to work as an Old Master paintings dealer. In 1902, he researched catalogues at the National Gallery, and he asked Sir Edward Poynter (1836–1919, Director 1894–1904), for assistance in finding a permanent appointment at a museum.16 Writing to Bode, a client and friend, in similar fashion in 1904, he noted that he would ‘like to mould a great collection, as director of a gallery’.17 No positions being forthcoming, Douglas turned to art dealing.18 He worked for some months as a salesman at an unknown Bond Street dealer before setting up premises at 110 Piccadilly, in the spring of 1904, as preparations were being finalized for the Burlington Fine Arts Club exhibition of Sienese art, which ran from 20 May to 24 June 1904.19 In his new position, his expertise as an art historian of early Italian and Sienese painting continued to define the specialism of his trade. The Burlington Fine Arts Club exhibition became a second quasi-showroom for Douglas’ fledgling dealing business. In June 1904, the American financier and art collector John Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913) asked Douglas to give a private tour of the exhibition.20 Morgan subsequently invited Douglas to visit him at the Hôtel Bristol in Paris, and sent him a cheque for £1,000 to support his research, on the understanding that Douglas would also seek out paintings for Morgan.21 Through Douglas, Morgan acquired fourteen paintings, all but one of which were attributed to Sienese artists.22 Several of these paintings were still on display in the Burlington Fine Arts Club at the time of their sale.23 Other paintings Douglas had presumably come across during his research for the exhibition or for the new edition of Crowe and Cavalcaselle.24 Douglas later boasted that these Sienese paintings bought by Morgan in 1904 inspired a new demand for Sienese art on the international art market. In 1940, he reminisced: The news went round, in Bond Street and the Place Vendôme, ‘Morgan’s buying Sienese pictures’. The effect can be compared to that produced in Wall Street, when, after some great slump, it began to be whispered, ‘Morgan is buying Steel ordinary’. . . . the great collector had, in his complex temperament, a certain mystical strain, inherited, no doubt, from some Welsh ancestor. He liked Sienese pictures.25

Morgan’s interest in Sienese painting is certainly attested by his visit to Siena in April 1912, when a local paper, Il Libero Cittadino, recorded that the cathedral pavement was uncovered especially for his visit.26 His visit indicates the great shift that had taken place in the first decade of the twentieth century, as the boundaries of the Old Master market expanded to include early Italian paintings that had until recently been considered ‘primitive’ or ‘curious’.27 In the 1850s, the first director of the National Gallery, Sir Charles Eastlake (1793–1865), had described these paintings as ‘specimens . . . selected solely for their historical importance . . . showing the rude beginnings from which, through nearly two centuries and a half, Italian art slowly advanced to the period of

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Raphael and his contemporaries’.28 Morgan’s acquisitions should be understood within this broader change in the art market. Douglas’ claim that Morgan’s acquisitions prompted an increase in demand for Sienese paintings on the international art market after 1904, however, should be treated with caution. Morgan’s Sienese paintings were not shipped to the United States of America with the rest of his Italian paintings in 1911, and were instead retained at his London home, at Princes Gate.29 They were also excluded from the 1907 Princes Gate catalogue, perhaps because many of these panels hung in Morgan’s bedroom.30 These paintings remained largely unseen until 1937, when Agnew’s were invited to value the paintings before the Second World War, and 1944, when the paintings were sold at Christie’s after Jack Morgan’s death.31 The 1904 exhibitions in London and Siena were undoubtedly crucial in bringing Sienese art into the spotlight for the first time, as Francis Haskell has noted.32 Douglas himself should also be credited with this promotion of interest in early Sienese art. As an expert in both Sienese painting and in the locations of these works hidden in private collections around Britain, he had a ready supply of pictures to meet the new, albeit quiet demand excited by the 1904 exhibitions and the recent scholarly interest in Siena, both matters with which he was heavily involved.

Selling to Berlin Despite this new, quiet demand for the so-called ‘primitives’, these works were not universally accepted as essential acquisitions for Old Master paintings collections. As a result, early Italian paintings remained relatively inexpensive. The acquisition of these paintings for public museums was still highly subjective and dictated by the tastes of a select few, as the following case study demonstrates. In 1904, Douglas put himself forward to Poynter as an agent for the National Gallery, with the specific aim of acquiring the panels of Ugolino di Nerio’s altarpiece then in private collections – a request which put him in a respectable line of dealers courting employment by the National Gallery, including the Woodburn brothers and Charles Fairfax Murray, as discussed by Susanna Avery-Quash in her chapter in this volume. Douglas proposed to attempt a reconstruction of Ugolino’s altarpiece at the Gallery, which had owned two of the predella panels since the Fuller Russell Sale in 1885.33 Douglas had borrowed six of the surviving panels for the Burlington Fine Arts Club exhibition, and he also knew that Cyril Harcourt, an Ottley descendant, was seeking to sell his panels from the altarpiece – or at least was willing to do so.34 The Rosebery Minute of 1894 and the subsequent, related Lansdowne Amendment of 1902, had, however, curtailed directorial powers to decide on purchases unilaterally and so Poynter was no longer in a position to agree to Douglas’ idea without gaining the agreement of the Gallery’s board of trustees.35 Alfred de Rothschild (1842–1914) and Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne (1845–1927), trustees from 1892 and 1894, respectively, were particularly vocal on the board. Rothschild criticized the practice of spending limited annual funds on ‘the acquisition of inferior works which were really unworthy of the National Collection’, arguing instead that it would

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be preferable to wait until funds had ‘accumulated sufficiently to reach an adequate sum which would pay for a work of undoubted merit’.36 Douglas later remarked that Poynter’s trustees were unaffected by the ‘movement in taste’ for Sienese painting specifically, that it had ‘certainly not touched the most influential of them all, a wealthy collector and a dilettante’ – almost certainly Rothschild – ‘who had a very poor opinion of works of the early Sienese school’.37 Indeed, the Lansdowne Amendment had been passed in response to Poynter’s acquisition of Pietro Orioli’s Nativity with Saints, then attributed to the Sienese cinquecento painter Jacopo Pacchiarotto, known also as Giacomo Pacchiarotti (1474–1539/40).38 When the National Gallery trustees refused Douglas’ proposition, Douglas approached Wilhelm von Bode (1845–1929), Director of the Berlin museum, to whom he had been introduced by the German curator and art historian Max Friedländer (1867–1958) in February 1903.39 Bode accepted his offer of Harcourt’s three panels (Fig. 9.1, below right), paying £210 for these ‘three saints, a portion of the altarpiece of S. Croce’ in June 1904.40 These panels were among the first of Douglas’ purchases as one of Bode’s agents in Britain. Douglas and Bode’s relationship culminated in 1914, when Bode purchased Giotto’s Dormition of the Virgin from Douglas and another dealer, Frederick Mason Perkins (1874–1955).41 During these years, Bode relied on Douglas

Fig. 9.1 Ugolino di Nerio, Fragments from the Santa Croce Altarpiece. Left: The Flagellation and The Entombment, both 34.5 x 53 cm. Above right: Saints Matthew, Elizabeth of Hungary, Mattias, James the Lesser, James the Greater and Philip. Below right: Saints John the Baptist, Paul and Peter, 1325–8, 191.6 x 61.5 cm. Gold and tempera on wood. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie/Imogen Tedbury; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie/Property of Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein/Imogen Tedbury.

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primarily for his knowledge of British private collections and his expertise in early Italian painting. He also encouraged his friends to submit queries about Sienese paintings to Douglas, who readily examined photographs submitted to him.42 In 1906, Douglas succeeded in persuading the Revd E. Meadows Russell, son and heir to the late Revd John Fuller Russell (1814–84), to part with two more panels of the Santa Croce altarpiece, The Flagellation and The Entombment (Fig. 9.1, left). Douglas initially offered these panels, in their ‘fine state’ to Bode for £600, commenting that they ‘will look well in their proper place, under the half figures of saints you already possess’.43 He sent the panels to Bode before they had agreed on a price, a strategy he employed when he believed Bode would be impressed. Douglas commented on the panels’ ‘perfect condition’: ‘considering that they were painted for S. Croce before Duccio executed his great ancona [altarpiece], their state is marvelous’.44 Douglas requested that Bode not allow his restorer Professor Hauser to restore these Ugolinos, as Hauser was less skilled with early Italian paintings than with Flemish, Dutch and German works, and the panels were, furthermore, ‘in so fine a state that you will agree that they do not require any attention’.45 Negotiations for these panels lasted almost a year. Douglas made three separate trips to Devon to negotiate with Meadows Russell, reducing the original asking price of £1,000. Douglas wished to make a profit on a group of paintings in order to break even for that period.46 He subsequently offered the panels to Bode for £550, a price which included insurance, packing, travel costs of £25, and commission of £50 at 10 percent.47 The final price remains unclear, but Douglas received ‘the sum of £1000 on account being a portion of a sum for one Pesellino and two pictures by Ugolino da Siena’.48 In 1911, Douglas procured three more panels from the same altarpiece for Bode (Fig. 9.1, above right), and received £150 for the three pairs of saints which he had acquired in the posthumous sale of Charles Butler in 1911.49 Douglas later reflected that his and Bode’s attempted ‘reconstruction’ of Ugolino’s altarpiece (Fig.  9.2), was unsatisfactory without the altarpiece’s original frame. He concluded that it was: ‘almost impossible . . . to collect together all the scattered fragments of such a work of art; and, when they have been collected, it is extremely difficult to determine their precise relation to each other’.50 Douglas is, of course, responsible for the fact that the Santa Croce Altarpiece can now never be reunited permanently.51 The National Gallery’s loss of these eight panels sold by Douglas to Berlin was felt more keenly after the Gallery was given four more panels from the same altarpiece between 1918 and 1919.52 The Keeper Charles H. Collins Baker wrote to Henry Wagner, one of the donors, that he would ask Douglas, discreetly, if he would sell the Gallery another ‘large panel’ he had mentioned to Wagner, so that ‘even if we cannot get the others from Berlin, we shall be able to reconstruct one entire section of the altarpiece’.53 This ‘large panel’ may have been the predella panel of The Last Supper (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), then in the collection of Canon L. Myers at Swanmore Park, Hampshire.54 Nothing came of this suggestion, however. Douglas’ willingness to sell works of art from Britain to Germany demonstrates how far Douglas had fallen out with the British art establishment by this date, especially given the ongoing public outcry against such betrayals of British cultural heritage.55 In

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Fig. 9.2 Photograph after 1911 of fragments from the Santa Croce Altarpiece by Ugolino di Nerio. Top: Saints James the Greater and Philip, Mattias and James the Lesser, and Matthew and Elizabeth of Hungary. Middle: Saints Paul, Peter and John the Baptist. Bottom: The Flagellation and The Entombment. © The Art Quarterly/Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie/Property of Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein.

1905, Douglas heard that the art critics Roger Fry (1866–1934) and Sir Claude Phillips (1846–1924) were visiting the Berlin collections, and he gloomily predicted this would lead to more articles complaining about Berlin’s acquisitions of British art treasures: If such an attack is made, the British public ought to be told of the extensive importation of pictures from Germany in the middle of the last century. Mr Fuller Russell, Prince Albert’s agents, & other buyers for English collectors purchased largely in Germany. . . . England has acquired pictures wholesale from Holland & from Italy.56

Indignant arguments of this kind sit uncomfortably beside the secrecy with which Douglas conducted many of his transactions, aware as he was of the potential controversy around his selling paintings from British collections abroad. Some of Douglas’ subsequent negotiations with Bode were conducted with the utmost confidentiality, particularly his attempts to extract works from collectors with supposedly ‘anti-German’ attitudes in the years preceding the First World War. Bode seems to have engaged Douglas specifically to deal with these owners.57 Nor should it

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be forgotten that Douglas had few pangs of conscience about selling other paintings from British collections to the United States – to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in particular, for whom he acted as agent between 1909 and 1920:58 In this business I feel no patriotic compunctions, as the National Gallery is really very richly furnished with Italian pictures; and there are more Italian pictures that are bound to come to the Gallery, such as Lady Layard’s pictures, &, probably, some of the pictures of Lord Wantage and Mr. Ludwig Mond.59

Such remarks place Douglas in a position contrary to the popular stance regarding art exports at this date. The public outcry regarding the exodus of art treasures from Britain reached new heights in the first decade of the twentieth century, with high profile cases such as Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus and Hans Holbein’s Christina of Denmark dividing the nation.60 Early Italian paintings did not reach the same prices, nor were they necessarily considered part of Britain’s cultural patrimony as these other paintings were; Christina of Denmark, for instance, had hung in the National Gallery since 1880 and was well known and very popular.61 Nonetheless, Douglas’ self-confessed lack of ‘patriotic compunctions’ became the internationalist creed of an international art dealer, committed to his clients abroad as much as to museums at home, which, in any case, had rejected his offerings.

Dealing from Dublin The case of the Santa Croce panels indicates the difficulties that dealers like Douglas faced in attempting to sell early Italian paintings to museums and galleries in Britain in the first decades of the twentieth century.62 In 1910, Douglas observed to Joseph Breck (1885–1933), then Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that: More than half the pictures that I have sold have been sold to public galleries and museums. Moreover I have exact knowledge [of] about two or three schools, and know what I am selling.63

These galleries and museums were for the most part beyond the British Isles. However, Douglas sold several works to the National Galleries of Scotland and Ireland, even before his appointment as director in Dublin in 1916. In his application for the post of Director of the National Gallery of Ireland, he argued that he had endeavoured to serve British art galleries in his dealing activities: I have always offered such important pictures as I have owned that were by masters not well represented in our National collection, to one of the National Galleries of the British Isles; unless these pictures had recently been offered to those collections by previous owners. The two or three pictures that I have sold to the National Gallery of Ireland, I have sold for what they cost me.64

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This was certainly true of some of Douglas’ sales to the National Gallery of Ireland after his appointment as Director, discussed below. In 1908, Douglas had helped the National Galleries of Scotland to buy an Adoration of the Magi, then attributed to the Sienese school. In 1910, he had sold the museum Matteo di Giovanni’s Virgin and Child (Fig. 9.3), once in the collection of John Ruskin and which had been exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club exhibition in 1904. The latter painting, however, had been offered to Scotland only after it had been rejected by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Reflecting after the Second World War on the art market for Old Masters, Douglas argued that dealers had a responsibility to offer works to museums in the country of their origin, if the artist in question was not already well represented there.65 He also suggested that dealers could play an important role in reuniting ‘dismembered altarpieces’ and filling gaps in collections. If a dealer or owner was unable to present a work as a gift to the relevant nation, he should ‘give its government the opportunity of purchasing, at a reasonable price, a work in his possession’, as a means to ‘promote international good will’.66 This reframing of the dealer’s role relates to Douglas’ ambitions to be a museum director, long voiced and eventually realized in his appointment to the National Gallery

Fig. 9.3 Matteo di Giovanni, Virgin and Child with Saint Sebastian, Saint Francis and Angels, c. 1480–90. Tempera and gold on panel, 51.3 x 39.7cm. National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh. Photograph by the author.

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of Ireland in 1916. This was not his first application for a similar post; in 1910, he had asked Bode to act as his referee in an application for the directorship at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts: In dealing there is much that is very unpleasant to me, but I continue to engage in it for the sake of my family. I myself can be happy on very little. If I had a directorship, I could engage in honourable work and also provide properly for my family. . . . [I would never be a] dealer in disguise but I would follow your noble example.67

In his National Gallery of Ireland application, he echoed these sentiments, writing that he ‘would gladly sacrifice a considerable portion of my present income in order to continue the work of the late director; as it has always been my ambition to devote myself, some day, to the work of developing and enriching a great public collection’.68 On the strength of his application, Douglas’ ambitions were realized, and he was appointed to the post, beating thirty-three other applicants, including Thomas Bodkin (1887–1961), the nephew of Douglas’ predecessor, Sir Hugh Lane (1875–1915).69 Personal relations between Douglas and Bodkin were severely tested throughout Douglas’ directorship. Bodkin had been the favoured candidate to replace Lane, and his growing concerns regarding the conflict of interests posed by Douglas’ dealing eventually led to Douglas’ forced resignation from his post in 1923.70 During his tenure as Director, Douglas followed Lane’s practice in selling the Gallery paintings at a low commission or no commission at all. Sometimes, as in the case of the Master of the Augustine Legend’s Scenes from the Life of Saint Augustine, Douglas sold works to the Gallery at less than the price he had given for the works in question.71 Of the thirtythree paintings purchased during Douglas’ directorship, twelve of these were bought from Douglas himself at a total cost to the National Gallery of Ireland of £9,305.0.2. By comparison, Douglas approved purchases from other dealers and private sellers to a value of a mere £1,860.7.9.72 As Douglas often took little or no commission in these sales, or so he claimed, this arrangement was in theory beneficial to the Gallery. However, in practice, it looked to Bodkin as though Douglas was paying himself directly from the Gallery’s purchase funds to supplement his annual salary. There was also increasing concern on Bodkin’s part that the Gallery’s purchases were becoming limited to the stock that Douglas could not sell elsewhere. While Douglas occasionally made gifts to the Gallery of less valuable paintings, such as James Arthur O’Connor’s The Devil’s Glen, presented in 1916, he also continued to sell his most valuable works to other clients, especially across the Atlantic, such as Philip Lehman (1861–1947), Robert Lehman (1891–1969), George Blumenthal (1858–1941) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Any conflict of interest in Douglas’ dealing was not initially remarked on. But in October 1919, Bodkin’s concerns resulted in a revision of the National Gallery of Ireland’s bye-laws. After this date, the Director could only purchase works on behalf of the Gallery up to the value of £500; more expensive acquisitions had to be approved by the Governors and Guardians at a meeting of the board.73 All three of Douglas’ so-called Sienese acquisitions for the National Gallery of Ireland were purchased under this law: the Madonna and Child

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attributed to Benvenuto di Giovanni cost £354 and 4 shillings, Beccafumi’s Saint Ansanus of Siena Baptising the People cost £480 and the Assumption of Saint Mary Magdalene attributed to Taddeo di Bartolo (Fig.  9.4) cost £164.74 Certainly, in this instance, Bodkin was correct in his suspicions: photographs of these paintings in the Lehman Papers indicate that Douglas had attempted to sell them to his American clients first, and that they entered the collection in Dublin only when he could not sell them for a higher price than the National Gallery of Ireland was offering – just as had been the case with the Scottish National Gallery’s Matteo di Giovanni in 1910. In January 1923, Douglas travelled to the USA, missing a board meeting on 7 February 1923. The Governors and Guardians officially registered their disapproval of his actions, which contravened Bodkin’s new bye-laws of 1919 that the Director must not absent himself for a period longer than three months without permission. On his return, Douglas defaced the minute book, crossing out the minutes for the meeting that had happened in his absence.75 When Douglas’ action was discovered, Bodkin charged him with misconduct at a meeting on 4 July 1923. As a result, Douglas resigned, claiming that he wished to be ‘free to devote more time than I am now able to do to research work in Italy; as I am preparing new editions of two of my books, and am collecting material for a new work’.76

Fig. 9.4 Silvestro dei Gherarducci, The Assumption of Saint Mary Magdalene, 1380s. Tempera and gold leaf on wood panel. National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. Photo © National Gallery of Ireland.

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Today, the National Gallery of Ireland’s three Sienese paintings all have different or contested attributions to the ones given by Douglas: the ‘Benvenuto di Giovanni’ is now attributed to Girolamo di Benvenuto, the ‘Beccafumi’ is given to a follower of the artist, and the ‘Taddeo di Bartolo’ is now attributed to Silvestro dei Gherarducci.77 Nonetheless, Douglas’ expansion of the Gallery’s early Italian holdings was appreciated even by Bodkin, his fiercest critic, who took over as director after Douglas’ resignation. In his 1932 catalogue of the National Gallery of Ireland’s collection, Bodkin acknowledged Douglas’ role in ‘enrich[ing] the collection with a few interesting pictures, including three or four examples of the earlier Italian schools which up to his time had not been represented there’, specifying that ‘until the advent of Captain Langton Douglas, the great School of Siena was entirely unrepresented’.78 Douglas may have sold these particular Sienese paintings to the National Gallery of Ireland as a last resort, but their acquisition was still unusual given the lack of interest in Sienese painting demonstrated by other British public collections during these decades. Douglas also intended, fleetingly, to make the National Gallery of Ireland a small centre for Sienese painting. Soon after his appointment, he approached the collector John G. Johnson (1841–1917) to buy back the Christ Carrying the Cross attributed to Sassetta (Fig. 9.5), which he had sold him in 1915.79 ‘I am collecting Sienese pictures,’ he wrote. ‘I hope to leave some to the Gallery, if I continue to prosper, though I can only

Fig. 9.5 Sano di Pietro, Christ Carrying the Cross, c. 1440–5.

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afford to keep a very few.’ When he had first offered this work to Johnson, he had said, ‘I would like to keep them for myself, as they belong to my own school.’80 Johnson’s reply to Douglas’ request does not survive, although the painting’s location today, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, indicates a negative response.

Conclusion Douglas’ career as a scholar-dealer is marked by thwarted ambition and contradiction, most especially in his sales of Sienese paintings. Although his letters and publications claim a principled stance on the moral responsibility of dealers and the possibilities for scholarship afforded by donation and reconstruction, his actions were, for the most part, seemingly driven by profit, as he attempted to compete with larger players, like the well-established large firms of Agnew’s or Duveen, while operating without partners and with comparatively little ready cash. Unlike Bode or Lane, museum directors whose stakes in the art market were perhaps concealed by the prominence of their scholarship and museum work, the openness with which Douglas conducted his dealing alongside his museum work left him open to criticism. Nonetheless, his personal interest in Sienese art, his ‘own school’, prompted him on several occasions to act against his financial interests in transactions involving such paintings.

Notes 1

2 3

4 5

6 7

Preface to Robert Langton Douglas’s typescript catalogue, ‘The Collection of Frank Channing Smith, Jr’, compiled in 1940. Copy held at the Frick Art Reference Library, New York. Denys Sutton’s biography of Robert Langton Douglas, published as a series of articles in Apollo between April 1979 and July 1979, was reprinted as Denys Sutton, Robert Langton Douglas: Connoisseur of Art and Life (London: Apollo Magazine Ltd., 1979). See Chapters 6, 8 and 12 by Barbara Pezzini, Catherine B. Scallen and Jelena Todorović, respectively, and Chapter 11 by Inge Reist, all in this volume. For Charles Fairfax Murray, see Paul Tucker, A Connoisseur and His Clients: The Correspondence of Charles Fairfax Murray with Frederic Burton, Wilhelm Bode and Julius Meyer, 1867–1914 (London: Walpole Society, 2017). See Chapters 4 and 7 by Susanna Avery-Quash and Véronique Gérard Powell, respectively, in this volume. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Robert Langton Douglas business files, Department of European Painting (hereafter, RLD EP Met), Douglas to Bryson Burroughs, 5 April 1931. Manchester, John Rylands Library (hereafter, JRL), Eng MS 1281/268, Douglas to Murray, 16 September 1903. For a thorough account of Ugolino di Nerio’s Santa Croce altarpiece panels, their provenance and history, see Dillian Gordon, The Italian Paintings Before 1400 (London: National Gallery, 2011), 430–77; Martin Davies, The Earlier Italian Schools (London: National Gallery, 1961), 533–42.

174 8 9

10

11

12 13 14

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16 17 18 19 20 21

Old Masters Worldwide David B. Elliott, Charles Fairfax Murray: The Unknown Pre-Raphaelite (Lewes: Book Guild, 2000), 158. For Berenson’s dealing, see Joseph Connors and Louis Alexander Waldman, eds, Bernard Berenson: Formation and Heritage, Villa I Tatti Series 31 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). For Perkins, see Fausto Nicolai, ‘More than an Expatriate Scholar: Frederick Mason Perkins as Art Adviser, Agent and Intermediary for American Collectors of the Twentieth Century’, Journal of the History of Collections 28, no. 2 (July 2016): 311–25. For Horne, see Ian Fletcher, Rediscovering Herbert Horne: Poet, Architect, Typographer, Art Historian (Greensboro, NC: ELT Press, 1990). Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Zentral Archiv, Bode archive (hereafter SMB-ZA), IV/NL Bode 1532/10, Douglas to Bode, 18 March 1905. Douglas’ later achievements in these fields included the sales of Albrecht Altdorfer’s Christ Taking Leave of His Mother (National Gallery, London, NG6463), Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait (Mauritshuis, The Hague) and Gerard David’s Deposition (Frick Collection, New York). Edward Hutton, ‘Robert L. Douglas, British Art Expert’, The New York Times, 16 August 1951, 24. Others in the ‘Sienese gang’ included Frederick Mason Perkins, Lucy Olcott, William Heywood, Edmund G. Gardner, Robert H. Hobart Cust and Charles Fairfax Murray. See Edward D. English, ‘Medieval and Renaissance Siena and Tuscany, c. 1900: Civic Life, Religion and the Countryside’, in Victorian and Edwardian Responses to the Italian Renaissance, ed. John E. Law and Lene Ostermark-Johansen (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 281–96. Robert Langton Douglas, A History of Siena (London: John Murray, 1902). See also his ‘Siena Then and Now’, The Burlington Magazine 152 (2010): 143. Robert Langton Douglas, Fra Angelico (London: George Bell & Sons, 1899). Mostra d’Antica Arte Senese was open 17 April–30 October 1904, and had 40,000 visitors. Douglas was on the advisory committee. Francis Haskell, The Ephemeral Museum: Old Master Paintings and the Rise of the Art Exhibition, 1st edn (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 106. For Berenson and Douglas’ argument, see Denys Sutton, ‘V: The Discovery of Sassetta’, Apollo 109 (April 1979): 288–93; Ernest Samuels, Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Connoisseur (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979); Helen Rees Leahy, ‘Scholarly and Disinterested: The Burlington Magazine, 1903–1914’, in Art History and Its Institutions: Foundations of a Discipline, ed. Elizabeth Mansfield (London: Routledge, 2002), 231–45; Machtelt Israëls, ‘The Berensons “Connosh” and Collect Sienese Painting’, in The Bernard and Mary Berenson Collection of European Paintings at I Tatti, ed. Carl Strehlke and Machtelt Israëls (Florence: Villa I Tatti in collaboration with Officina Libraria, 2015), 47–69. For the Burlington Fine Arts Club’s Siena exhibition (hereafter Siena exhibition), see Elisa Camporeale, ‘L’esposizione di arte senese del 1904 al Burlington Fine Arts Club di Londra’, in Il segreto della civiltà: la mostra dell’Antica Arte Senese del 1904 cento anni dopo, ed. Giuseppe Cantelli, Lucia Simona Pacchierotti and Beatrice Pulcinelli (Siena: Protagon, 2005), 484–517. National Gallery, London, Archive (hereafter, NGA), NG68/24/10, letter from Douglas to Edward Poynter, 30 July 1902. SMB-ZA, IVNL Bode 1532/3, letter from Douglas to Bode, 29 January 1904. Douglas, ‘Frank Channing Smith, Jr’. Denys Sutton, ‘XI: Commerce and Connoisseurship’, Apollo 109 (May 1979): 367; Camporeale, ‘L’esposizione’, 485. Sutton, ‘Commerce and Connoisseurship’, 368. Ibid.

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22 Nardo di Cione’s Coronation of the Virgin from the Herbert Horne Collection was the exception. The prices of these fourteen paintings, listed in the following two notes, are unknown. 23 Duccio’s Crucifixion Triptych from the Earl of Crawford’s collection (BFAC no. 4; now Museum of Fine Arts, Boston); Matteo di Giovanni’s Madonna and Child with Two Saints from Henry Willett (BFAC no. 37; now Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham, 44.2), Giovanni di Paolo’s Saint John the Baptist predella (BFAC nos 27 and 28; now National Gallery, London NG5451–5454). 24 Four Scenes from the Life of Christ once attributed to Pacchiarotto, now given to Pietro di Francesco degli Orioli (two of these are now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, PD.980–1963, PD.981–1963) and a Madonna and Child attributed to Pacchia came from Charles Butler’s collection; Francesco di Vannuccio’s Annunciation and Assumption of the Virgin (now Girton College, Cambridge), Bartolo di Fredi’s Adoration of the Magi (Private Collection, New York) and a Sano di Pietro Virgin and Child were purchased from unknown locations. Sutton, ‘Commerce and Connoisseurship’, 370 n. 8. 25 Douglas, ‘Frank Channing Smith Jr’. 26 Cited in Piergiacomo Petrioli, ‘ “The Wonder of Siena”: Artisti e critici anglosassoni dell’Ottocento e il Pavimento del Duomo di Siena’, in Studi interdisciplinari sul Pavimento del Duomo di Siena: iconografia, stile, indagini scientifiche, ed. Marilena Caciorgna, Roberto Guerrini and Mario Lorenzoni (Siena: Edizioni Cantagalli, 2005), 127. 27 Haskell, Rediscoveries, 98, notes that The Art Journal referred to early Italian paintings as ‘antiquities and curiosities’, and ibid., 100, that ‘antique’ was a term used to describe the style of painting of Giotto. 28 Report of the Director of the National Gallery (1857/8, printed 1867) transcribed in Martin Davies, The Early Italian Schools (London: National Gallery, 1961), 565–7. 29 Jennifer Tonkovich, ‘Discovering the Renaissance: J. Pierpont Morgan’s Shift to Collecting Italian Old Masters’, in A Market for Merchant Princes: Collecting Italian Renaissance Paintings in America, ed. Inge Reist (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015), 45. 30 Thomas Humphrey Ward and William Roberts, Pictures in the Collection of J. Pierpont Morgan at Prince’s Gate and Dover House, London (London: Privately printed, 1907); Tonkovich, ‘Discovering the Renaissance’, 41. 31 Archives of The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, ‘Inventory . . . 12 Grosvenor Square, London, January 1917 . . .’ and ‘Thos Agnew & Sons, Inventory . . . 23 November 1937’ [J.P. Morgan Jr. Papers: Box 215, Folder 363 and Box 216, Folder 364.] Morgan’s Sienese paintings were sold at Christie’s on 31 March 1944, lot 138. 32 Haskell, Ephemeral Museum, 106. 33 The National Gallery’s third Director, Sir Frederic Burton (1816–1900, Director 1874–94) purchased just two panels for the Gallery from among the eighteen panels at the Fuller Russell Sale at Christie’s, 18 April 1885. 34 The six panels exhibited at the BFAC were the National Gallery’s Saints Simon and Thaddeus (NG3377), Spandrel Angels (NG3378), The Deposition (NG3375) and Saints Bartholomew and Andrew (NG3473), and the Gemäldegalerie’s Scourging of Christ. 35 Jonathan Conlin, The Nation’s Mantelpiece: A History of the National Gallery (London: Pallas Athene, 2006), 95–8, 106, 358. 36 NGA, NG1/6, ‘Remarks by Mr Alfred C. de Rothschild respecting recent purchases’, Meeting of the Board, 4 February 1896.

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37 Robert Langton Douglas, ‘The Reconstruction of Dismembered Altarpieces: How Far is it Possible? How Far is it Desirable?’, Art Quarterly 8 (Autumn 1945): 284. 38 NG1849.1–2. See Imogen Tedbury, ‘ “Every School Has Its Day”: The Collecting, Reception and Display of Trecento and Quattrocento Sienese Painting in Britain, 1850–1950’ (PhD dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, Univeristy of London, 2018), 65–71. 39 SMB-ZA, IVNL-Bode 1532/3, Max Friedländler’s letter of introduction is dated 19 February 1903. 40 SMB-ZA, IVNL Bode 1532/4, letter from Douglas to Bode, 23 June 1904. 41 Nicolai, ‘More than an Expatriate Scholar’, 319–20. 42 For example, SMB-ZA, IVNL-Bode 1532/22, letter from Douglas to Bode, 2 January 1910, in which it is noted that a Miss Schottmutter had sent him a photograph of a painting attributed to Ugolino. 43 SMB-ZA, IVNL-Bode 1532/11, letter from Douglas to Bode, 4 August 1906. 44 Douglas’ edition of J. A. Crowe and G. B. Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in Italy: Umbria, Florence and Siena: from the Second to the Sixteenth Century, ed. Douglas and Tancred Borenius, 6 vols (London: John Murray, 1903–14), like earlier editions, argues that Ugolino was working in Florence in the late 1290s, thus implying that his S. Croce altarpiece predated Duccio’s Maestà, completed in 1311; see Crowe and Cavalcaselle, History of Painting, ed. Douglas, III, 22. 45 SMB-ZA, IVNL-Bode 1532/12, letter from Douglas to Bode, 10 August 1906. 46 SMB-ZA, IVNL-Bode 1532/11, 12, 13, letters from Douglas to Bode, 16 September 1906, 9 November 1906, 20 December 1906, respectively. 47 SMB-ZA, IVNL-Bode 1532/17, letter from Douglas to Bode, 25 January 1907. 48 Ibid., Receipt dated 7 January 1907. 49 SMB-ZA, IVNL-Bode 1532/23, letters from Douglas to Bode, 2 June 1911 and 3 July 1911. Charles Butler Sale, Christie’s, 25 May 1911, lot 8. Butler had bought the paintings at the Fuller Russell Sale in 1885. 50 Douglas, ‘Reconstruction’, 284. 51 The surviving fragments of the altarpiece were briefly reunited at the Berlin Gemäldegalerie in 2005; see Stefan Weppelmann, Geschichten auf Gold: Bilderzählungen in der frühen Italienischen Malerei (Berlin: SMB-DuMont, 2005). 52 In 1918, Henry Wagner gave the National Gallery, London, his Santa Croce panels of The Deposition (NG3375) and Isaiah (NG3376), then Saints Simon and Thaddeus (NG3377) the following year, when the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres also gave his panel of Saints Bartholomew and Andrew (NG3473). 53 Letter from Charles Henry Collins Baker, Keeper of the National Gallery, to Henry Wagner (carbon copy), 12 February 1919, preserved in the Gallery’s picture dossier for Ugolino di Nerio’s Deposition. 54 John Pope-Hennessy, Italian Paintings in the Robert Lehman Collection, Volume 1 (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987), 8–11. 55 Neil Harris, ‘The Long Good-Bye: Heritage and Threat in Anglo-America’, in British Models of Art Collecting and the American Response: Reflections Across the Pond, ed. Inge Reist (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 195–208. 56 SMB-ZA, IVNL-Bode 1532/8, letter from Douglas to Bode, 16 September 1905. 57 SMB-ZA, IVNL-Bode 1532/12, Douglas wrote to Bode that: ‘as you surmised, Captain Pretyman is very anti-German. I do not think that he is short of money, but, as he is not very rich, & prefers sport to art, it may be possible to realise our wishes’. Letter from Douglas to Bode, 16 July 1906.

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58 For Douglas’ sales to the USA, see ch. 5 of Tedbury, ‘ “Every School Has Its Day” ’. 59 RLD Files, EP, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, letter from Douglas to Dr Edward Robinson, 4 December 1909. Douglas was proved correct about the Mond and Layard Collections, both of which came to the National Gallery through important bequests in 1909 and 1916, respectively. 60 Both works are now in the National Gallery’s collection: NG2057 and NG2475, respectively. See Barbara Pezzini, ‘Days with Velázquez: When Charles Lewis Hind Bought the “Rokeby Venus” for Lockett Agnew’, The Burlington Magazine 158 (2016): 358–67; Patricia Rubin, ‘ “The Outcry”: Despoilers, Donors, and the National Gallery in London, 1909’, Journal of the History of Collections 25, no. 2 (2013): 253–75 (here, 262–9, 265); Andrea Geddes Poole, Stewards of the Nation’s Art: Contested Cultural Authority, 1890–1939 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 108–29. 61 The uproar surrounding the possible exportation of Holbein’s Christina of Denmark inspired Henry James’ play The Outcry (1909) and novel of the same name (1911). See Rubin, ‘ “The Outcry” ’. 62 See Peter Crack, ‘Public Purchases of Early Italian Paintings in Twentieth-Century Britain’ (PhD dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 2019). 63 Letter from Douglas to Joseph Breck, 10 November 1910. Denys Sutton, ‘XVII: Dramatic Days’, Apollo 110 (June 1979): 456. 64 Archives of the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (hereafter NGIA), folder 10, Douglas to the Governors and Guardians, 18 April 1916. 65 Douglas, ‘Reconstruction’, 294–5. 66 Ibid., 295. 67 SMB-ZA, IVNL-Bode 1532/22, letter from Douglas to Bode, 26 September 1910. 68 NGIA, folder 10, letter from Douglas to the Governors and Guardians, 18 April 1916. 69 NGIA, Board Minutes, 1916, Board Meeting, 17 May 1916. 70 Peter Somerville-Large, 1854–2004: The Story of the National Gallery of Ireland (Dublin: University of Washington Press, 2006), 259–93. 71 NGIA, Board Minutes, 1919, Board Meeting, 2 July 1919. 72 NGIA, Register of Paintings. 73 NGIA, Board Minutes, 1919: ‘The Bye-Laws of the National Gallery of Ireland’, October 1919, by Thomas Bodkin. 74 NGIA, Register of Paintings. 75 NGIA, Board Minutes, 1923, Board Meeting, 7 February 1923. 76 NGIA, Board Minutes, 1923, Board Meeting, 4 July 1923; NGIA, Administration 4, Folder marked ‘Robert Langton Douglas’, letter from Douglas to the Chairman of the Board, 4 July 1923. 77 NGIA, object files for NGI839, NGI840, NGI841. 78 Thomas Bodkin, Catalogue of Pictures (Dublin: Printed for the Stationery Office by the Wood Printing Works, Ltd., 1928), viii, x. 79 Christ Carrying the Cross (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia) is now attributed to Sano di Pietro or The Osservanza Master. 80 Philadelphia Museum of Art, John G. John Archive, box 3, letters from Douglas to John G. Johnson, 21 August 1915, 25 August 1915 and 20 September 1915.

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10

A Missed Opportunity?: Goupil and the Old Masters Agnès Penot

The highs and lows of the Paris-based print and art dealing business of La Maison Goupil1 epitomize the history of rapid development and growth in the international art market of the mid-nineteenth century and the dealers who embraced these changes in taste and focus.2 From the 1830s through to the end of the century, Goupil played a major role in advancing the diffusion of art through its extensive international network of branches.3 Until the 1880s, Goupil was, in fact, at the fore of the transatlantic art trade, actively supplying the picture-enthusiastic American nouveaux riches from its store of ‘house’ paintings: principally French Academic art and works of the Barbizon and Hague Schools. Yet, by 1911, when the New York Times Magazine bemoaned that ‘[w]e strip Europe of her treasures of art’ (as Old Master paintings came to hang under American roofs), Goupil was no longer implicated because it had already lost its influence.4 Goupil’s downfall occurred in tandem with a shift in attention of American collectors from contemporary European art to indigenous art and the Old Masters,5 which had always been a secondary concern for the French dealer, representing only 1.5 per cent of all of its purchases (Fig. 10.1). This low figure demonstrates a very clear discrepancy for a dealership formerly known for its audacity and was a strange misjudgement that led to its decline and liquidation in just a decade. This error of judgement is the subject of this chapter, which also analyses the French dealer’s business model to provide answers as to why Goupil did not invest its resources in the ever expanding market for the Old Masters.

Old Master Paintings and La Maison Goupil La Maison Goupil, like many other dealers at the time, did not start out as a dealership in paintings. In 1846, while asserting its leadership in print dealing and art reproduction techniques, it took the bold step to diversify into original works of art. In fact, Adolphe Goupil (1806–93) at first expanded into pictures to support his growing activities as a print seller on the boulevard Montmartre in Paris: by acquiring original paintings, he obtained the sole rights to reproduce them. However, with a growing accumulation of 181

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Fig. 10.1 Old Master purchases vs total purchases, 1846–1919. Compiled by the author. Data from the Goupil/Boussod & Valadon Stock Books, 1846–1919, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.

stock, Goupil made the decision to sell the originals. As a consequence, Goupil laid the foundations of the firm’s successful business model, which relied on a vertical integration of the artistic economy, that is to say a complete management of the supply chain – from direct communication with the artist to the sale and reproduction of the work. The Goupil headquarters on rue Chaptal, near the celebrated auctioneering business at the Hôtel Drouot, reflected the latter organization in its physical layout, offering studios to artists on the upper levels, offices for the communication and sales teams on the ground floor, and reproduction workshops in the basement.6 The building also included a warehouse and the owner’s own living quarters. A clever entrepreneur, Goupil had a monopolistic view of the art market, and as his cash flow increased, he developed contracts of exclusivity with artists so that he could oversee every step of their artistic production. In addition to being able to influence subject matter, this business model allowed him to control the prices of his artists while securing their loyalty, as shown in the characteristic contract he signed with the French realist painter and etcher Léon Lhermitte (1844–1925) in 1887, which included payment of a monthly stipend and half of the sale profits in exchange for the right to sell and reproduce the entirety of the artist’s production.7 In line with principles of the modern art market of the time, this system led to rapid success, which was solidified through wise artistic choices. Business expanded still further as the firm went on to extend its reach across Europe and the United States, as well as the Ottoman Empire and Australia.8 The decision to open a gallery in New York in 1848, where its most valued clients were located,9 was proof of the dealer’s audacity to introduce modern French painting to the wider world. The innovative multinational gallery system would propel La Maison Goupil to the forefront of art dealing, and with no apparent obstacles. Indeed, no one cast doubt on the efficiency of this well-oiled

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organization until the close of the century, when buyers’ preferences in America started to change. Until the 1880s, because Goupil’s business model was based on very close relationships with living artists, paintings by the Old Masters had entered the firm’s stock only by chance. For example, in 1875, Goupil bought up the business of Holloway & Sons, a London-based art gallery located in Bedford Street. In addition to the premises, Goupil acquired Holloway’s stock of prints, books and paintings, which included 152 works by living artists such as Lhermitte, Alexandre Gabriel Decamps and François Compte-Calix. The stock, however, also included works by eighteenth-century painters like François Boucher, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Antoine Watteau, Antonio Canaletto and Jean Siméon Chardin, together with examples by yet older Old Masters such as Meindert Hobbema, Rembrandt, Jacob van Ruisdael, Bernardino Luini and Raphael. Due to the fact that Holloway’s painting stock was of mixed quality, comprising a jumble of over-optimistic attributions to established artists, some obscure names and even a few fakes, it took Goupil five years to sell all the pictures, a late sale being the Head of a Man by Rembrandt, sold at Hôtel Drouot in 1880.10 Goupil’s yearly acquisitions of Old Masters increased from an average of eight paintings in the 1880s to thirteen in the 1890s. If initially, as noted, acquisitions of Old Master paintings had been almost accidental, by the 1890s, they were intentional, with the firm purchasing at auction or developing partnerships with colleagues located mainly in London, such as Wallis & Sons and Colnaghi. At the famous 1889 Secrétan Sale, la Maison Goupil, under its successor Boussod, Valadon & Cie, purchased a painting by Rembrandt, L’Homme à l’armure, with fellow dealers Charles Sedelmeyer (1837–1925) and Montaignac; indeed, it was Montaignac who would eventually find a buyer for the work.11 Again, in May 1890, Boussod, Valadon & Cie sent Theo van Gogh (1857–91) to Hôtel Drouot to buy seven works by Jan van Goyen on behalf of Belgian dealer Émile Clarembaux (1844–1910).12 At the Tabourier Sale in 1898, Boussod, Valadon & Cie again jointly acquired several paintings by Canaletto, this time with the English dealer Wallis & Sons, the latter finding a buyer for all of them. As several historians of the art market have noted, including Inge Reist in her chapter in the current volume, it was common for dealers to join forces, especially when affairs proved difficult, and although joint accounts were not exclusive to the Old Master trade, they became standard practice towards the end of the century.13 Goupil’s attempts to penetrate the Old Master market, however, also reveal the market’s reliance on third parties to compensate for its deficient client network for such paintings. As importantly, however, in the case of Boussod, Valadon & Cie, was their lack of the connoisseurship necessary to deal effectively in the Old Masters. This deficiency is demonstrated when, in 1892, Clarembeaux sued the firm for selling him an over-restored picture by Jan van Goyen, which they had acquired from the 1890 Drouot Sale.14 On a personal level, the gallery owners certainly appreciated the Old Masters and even admitted that in terms of religious subject matter modern masters were unable to match to what their forebears had produced – in the introduction to their 1894 catalogue, when discussing a facsimile by Ernest Hébert (1817–1908) after his Vierge de la Délivrance, they noted: ‘Modern painting, which successfully represents most

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subject matters, has remained inferior when it comes to religious topics.’15 Interestingly, too, Goupil’s managers collected older art for their own private art collections, notably Renaissance decorative art objects and furnishings, rather than the type of modern or contemporary painting they promoted through their business. Albert Goupil (1840–84), Adolphe’s youngest son, for example, decorated two rooms of his apartment in rue Chaptal in the Renaissance style (Figs 10.2 and 10.3). Miguel Zamacoïs (1866–1955), who lived in Albert’s studio after the latter’s death in 1884, left the following description of the premises: One then turned right into what looked like the abode of either a prince or an opulent pope from the 15th century. What first attracted one’s attention was the monumental stone chimney and its central escutcheon from whichever castle in France.16

On his death, Albert bequeathed to the Louvre his rugs and Gobelin tapestry, as well as his esteemed marble statue of Saint John the Baptist, then attributed to Donatello.17 Adolphe Goupil himself owned Renaissance tapestries, which he displayed in his

Fig. 10.2 Photogravure by Goupil & Cie of Albert Goupil’s Renaissance Room, 1884. Musée Goupil, Bordeaux.

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Fig. 10.3 Another photogravure by Goupil & Cie of Albert Goupil’s Renaissance Room, 1884. Musée Goupil, Bordeaux.

country house in Bougival.18 Valued at 30,000 francs in the notary’s inventory after his death in 1893, these tapestries were the dealer’s most expensive works of art. Quite evidently, Adolphe had the means, knowledge and taste to collect older art, including Old Master painting, but lacked the requisite experience and access to expertise to invest and deal in it systematically. These failings were shared by his successors Léon Boussod (1826–96) and René Valadon (1848–1921), such that, at the end of the nineteenth century, they found it hard to respond effectively to the definite shift in the art market towards the Old Masters.

The Market for Old Masters in France Goupil’s records of transactions show a moderate change of emphasis in the firm’s acquisition strategy, which indicates that as early as the first years of the 1890s its managers had recognized the surge in interest for the Old Masters. Nevertheless, in 1900, the Parisian auction market was ‘deeply compartmentalized’ and, as ascertained by Léa Saint Raymond in her study of Parisian auction sales, it valued modern pictures

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more highly than the ‘old’ ones.19 For example, the average hammer price at the time for a modern painting was 2,167 francs and only 735 francs for an Old Master, and 51 per cent of all sales, in terms of purchase prices, came from the modern sector. In 1900, Albrecht Dürer was the most expensive Old Master in Paris, one of his drawings fetching 36,000 francs, but this price ranked him only ninth in value of any artist whose work came on the market that year, whether modern or old. Parisian auctions in 1900 drew both a local and international crowd. Dealers such as Knoedler & Co, Georges Petit, Bernheim Jeune and Boussod, Valadon & Cie acquired works exclusively from the modern schools, and Durand-Ruel, the second most important buyer at Parisian auctions in 1900, acquired only a handful of Old Masters. On the other hand, Franz Kleinberger (1848–1936) and Auguste Danlos (1839–c. 1928), both established dealers in Paris since the 1840s, specifically targeted the Old Masters, but they were in the minority and in a field that had not yet reached any kind of maturity. Indeed, the generally low figures recorded for the sales of Old Master paintings within the Parisian art dealership scene of the day strongly suggest that the specimens then circulating were generally of low quality. Again, the fact that there were not many of them in circulation demonstrates that Paris, at this point, played only a secondary role in the market for the Old Masters. These deficiencies in the local market may help explain why Goupil and the firm’s successors did not feel compelled to become immediately heavily involved in this other, comparatively marginalized market, and why they used joint accounts with international dealers when they did seek to access some historical works of higher quality.

The Market for Old Masters in England As noted by Barbara Pezzini in an earlier chapter, the severe agrarian crisis of the 1870s had a tremendous impact on the London art market. In the following decade, due to aristocratic families parting with their inherited art collections to generate funds (as well as to embrace a more modern lifestyle),20 the market experienced a surge in the availability of Old Master paintings. With a successful branch there since the 1850s, Goupil had become a prominent and wealthy player in the London art scene and was, therefore, theoretically, well positioned to acquire such newly available works.21 However, the international gallery system that the Goupil successors inherited in 1884, and maintained, imposed a strict and inflexible role for each of its subsidiaries. Within this unyielding hierarchical system, the London branch existed essentially as an outlet for contemporary French and Dutch art, for which Goupil had developed a monopoly through its head office in Paris and its branch in The Hague. In the 1890s, the London branch of the firm suffered a severe double blow given that it not only lost its mastermind, Adolphe Goupil, but also started to face unknown levels of direct competition as the market diversified in the way outlined above. Agnew’s, another player in the London art scene, implemented specific business strategies in relation to the Old Master market, as analysed by Pezzini in this volume, while Knoedler and Colnaghi each found a new generation of discerning leaders in Charles Carstairs (1865–1928) and Otto Gutekunst (1865–1947), respectively, who seemingly effortlessly

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put their firms at the forefront of the art market by believing in and investing in the Old Masters.22 Simultaneously, at Colnaghi, Director Otto Gutekunst found an ally in the Italian art connoisseur Bernard Berenson (1865–1959), who complemented Gutekunst’s own expertise in the Northern European schools of paintings. With Berenson’s connection to Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924) and other wealthy American collectors, the duo gained control of both the supply and the demand for Old Master paintings.23 Carstairs on the other hand, as Reist has demonstrated in her chapter in this book, was responsible for reorienting Knoedler’s outlook from contemporary French art to the Old Masters, examples of which he found readily available in London. The opening of Knoedler’s London branch in 1902 in Old Bond Street coincided with the sale of Boussod, Valadon & Cie’s London and New York branches to William Marchant and Eugène Glaenzer, respectively, as the business, especially in English-speaking lands, entered financial difficulty. Yet, Boussod, Valadon & Cie, despite its buying power and international exposure, remained obstinately wedded to the Goupil Salon system and the business model that had been established by and for the firm half a century earlier.24 In so doing, it failed to embrace the new modus operandi of art businesses and the new fashions in art collecting introduced at the turn of the twentieth century.

Goupil-Knoedler and the American Market for the Old Masters ‘The demand for Old Masters continues with us. Modern Art is not discounted by it, it is true, but ancient art, so long condemned, is now receiving a share of the justice due it.’25 In 1892, when Alfred Trumble wrote these words in an article titled, ‘The World of Collectorship’, the market for the Old Masters had reached unprecedented heights in America.26 If Adolphe Goupil was one of the most influential dealers of the nineteenth century, his successors oversaw the firm’s demise. They did so by persisting with the company’s decades-long artistic traditions. After 1890, not a single painting by the nineteenth-century French academic painter William Bouguereau and only a handful of paintings by Jean-Léon Gérôme, another exponent of academicism, entered the United States. Previously, such works of art had been the staple fare of Goupil’s business. When Knoedler & Co restructured the firm in 1893 and sold some of the old stock at auction, Roland Knoedler (1856–1923) could not but acknowledge the change in taste that this signalled: I will send you next week the list of paintings that may interest some dealers. The number of works will not be substantial unfortunately, since Breton, Vibert, Gérôme, etc., do not interest them, and neither does the old stock.27

The American millionaire Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) epitomized this phenomenon when, in 1899, he exchanged two paintings by Gérôme – Prayer in the Mosque of Quat Bey and Painting Breathes Life into Sculpture, which he had bought from Knoedler in 1895 during his early collecting years – for a Portrait of a Young Artist by Rembrandt from the British dealer Arthur Tooth & Sons.28

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The Goupil/Boussod-Valadon system had already suffered a significant blow at the end of the 1880s when the firm lost its greatest ally in the American art market – Knoedler, who, after buying out the New York branch of Goupil in 1857, had consistently maintained a close and fruitful business relationship with them. The Knoedler–Goupil conduit had, in fact, been crucial in the development of the art market in the United States, especially after the Civil War, as the main supplier of European contemporary pictures, namely works by Dutch and French masters, which, at the time, were the paintings most favoured by American collectors.29 These ties could have been kept strong when American collectors turned their attention to the Old Masters if relations between these two dealerships had not deteriorated soon after Adolphe Goupil’s retirement and if business in the United States had not slowed down. Boussod and Valadon reacted to the decline by opening a new branch of their dealership in New York in 1887 to try to recoup their market in America. The decision infuriated Knoedler’s, who, perhaps in retaliation, opened a Knoedler & Co branch in Paris, at 2 rue Gluck, in 1895, thereby ending Knoedler’s reliance on Boussod and Valadon for pictures from living European artists.30 Boussod, Valadon & Cie’s stock books reflect the firm’s new understanding of the interest of American collectors in the Old Masters, since they sent to their New York branch most of their stock of Old Masters. This included an Aelbert Cuyp, a Francesco Guardi and a Hobbema, the latter of which they sold for 120,000 francs to George Jay Gould (1864–1923) in 1898. In 1892, in addition to hagiographic descriptions of the Yerkes Collection in Chicago, and the Lambert and Havemeyer Collections in New York, Alfred Trumble, in his tour of Old Master repositories for his art journal The Collector, featured Boussod, Valadon & Cie in New York, noting the quality of the Old Masters they had on display: There are some fine old masters in the galleries of the New York dealers. One is the majestic Rembrandt called the ‘Portrait of Joris Coulery,’ imported by Boussod, Valadon & Co., and fully described by me in this paper. This house has also two superior examples of David Teniers the younger, bought from the Codman family in Boston, by whose ancestors they were procured from Le Brun, Director of the Louvre in 1796.31

Only Le Fumeur rose by Teniers is listed in the dealer’s stock book, thereby indicating that the paintings featured in Trumble’s article were, in fact, either consignments or not for sale.32 The Rembrandt praised by Trumble was not sold until 1910, at the Yerkes Collection auction.33 The stock books do show, however, the dealer’s involvement in brokering in 1897 two van Dyck paintings (Fig. 10.4) between two major collectors of Old Masters: Catholina Lambert (1834–1923) and William Lukens Elkins (1832– 1903).34 But these remained isolated episodes in a stock that continued to be dominated by the modern schools. Was it that Boussod, Valadon & Cie tried to trade and consign more Old Masters but were not successful in finding buyers? What is clear is that Goupil/Boussod-Valadon lacked the long-term vision and the necessary contacts that their American competitors were able to develop, and, in addition, may have relied too much on their original business model based on reproductive engraving and vertical integration of the artistic economy.

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Fig. 10.4 Anthony van Dyck, Isabella, Lady de la Warr, c. 1638. Oil on canvas, 213.4 x 137.2 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Old Masters in Prints La Maison Goupil began life as a print-selling business in the 1820s, an activity that remained central to the firm’s history until it closed its doors in 1919. It specialized in reproductive prints of the work of established living artists who regularly exhibited at the Salon. A survey of both its departments of prints and paintings throughout its existence reveals that the firm’s acquisitions of original historical paintings and its associated publication of prints after the Old Masters remained rather coincidental and sporadic. For example, Goupil’s series of etchings by Anthony van Dyck appeared in 1874 and its volume Œuvre de Albert Dürer was reproduced and published in partnership with the printmaker Amand-Durand and the Gazette des Beaux-Arts four years later, in 1878. Aware of the educational potential of a catalogue, the latter luxury edition contained, in addition to 108 etchings by Dürer, a short introduction and a description of the works by Georges Duplessis (1834–99), curator of the print room at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Of all the Old Masters, it was Raphael on whom the firm concentrated its greatest efforts. Goupil reproduced no fewer than seventy paintings by the master, starting with the Sistine Madonna and the Holy Family known as La Perla, both works engraved by Narcisse Lecomte in 1838.35 Apart from Raphael, Murillo was the artist most often reproduced by Goupil/Boussod-Valadon in all its price ranges. The firm’s range went

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from the cheapest format (Carte-Album, Musée Goupil, Carte de visite) to mid-priced items, including the Album photographique and the Photographies d’après les grands maîtres collection – the latter being easily identified by its large dimensions (18 x 24 cm) on papier de chine, laid on white Bristol cardboard – to the most expensive format of line engravings. When Murillo’s famous painting of the Immaculate Conception (Prado, Madrid) came on to the market in 1852 in the sale of the Soult Collection, the Louvre bought it for a record price of 615,300 francs.36 Its arrival there had a ‘stunning effect on the countless copyists studying in the Louvre’: 167 applications to copy it were received in fewer than five years.37 Goupil, well aware of the market for the Spanish master and of the firm’s potential in reproductive print, commissioned the German engraver Philipp-Hermann Eichens to make a new engraving. The print was published in 1874 and distributed throughout the dealer’s network.38 In fact, it was common practice in the Goupil/Boussod-Valadon trajectory to commission copies of paintings by the Old Masters, probably in order to facilitate their reproduction. Out of the ten paintings by Murillo featured in the dealership’s stock books, eight were used for engraving purposes, including The Immaculate Conception. Indeed, Adolphe Goupil had always striven to offer his clients prints of the most iconic paintings. For example, in 1858, the dealer commissioned Zachée Prevost to engrave The Wedding at Cana by Paolo Veronese. Goupil also reproduced Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, and, in 1883, commissioned the well-known printmaker Charles Waltner to produce a large-scale print of Rembrandt’s masterpiece The Night Watch (Fig. 10.5). The

Fig. 10.5 Charles-Albert Waltner after Rembrandt van Rijn, La Ronde de Nuit (De Nachtwacht), 1885. Engraving published by Boussod, Valadon & Cie.

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timing was propitious, as it coincided with the increasing value placed on reproductions of Rembrandt’s work, and the publication of this print was among the most profitable of its kind for any French printmaker.39 Henri Beraldi, in his entry on Goupil in Les Graveurs du XIXe siècle, noted that Waltner had been paid as much for The Night Watch as Louis Pierre Henriquel-Dupont had received for the decade of work he had invested in an engraving of the Hemicycle of the École des Beaux-Arts.40 Furthermore, as Goupil had done thirty years earlier, when it selected Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emmanuel Leutze as its debut to the American market, the firm chose a highly patriotic, well-known image – in fact, Rembrandt’s most famous painting – to emphasize its understanding of the significance of the painting in the print market. Indeed, by the time Waltner’s print of The Night Watch was first advertised for sale in the 1887 BoussodValadon catalogue, all the artist’s proofs on parchment – the fifty most valuable prints – had already been sold. Prints of Old Masters were treated individually, based on the reputation of the original work, and there is little evidence that dealers in general recognized their importance in any wider trend for the Old Masters. Gaining access to the original paintings for reproduction purposes, however, was complex and political. At the Louvre, for example, which was the best repository of Old Master paintings in France at the time, only a few photographers were authorized to work in the museum’s galleries before the Third Republic. Goupil in theory could have entered the market of reproductive prints of Old Master works if the photographic company Braun & Cie had not obtained in 1883 from the Administration des BeauxArts a thirty-year franchise as the Louvre’s official photographer. From that time on, reproduction of works of art became Braun’s specialty, especially since the museum also provided Braun with an on-site stall from where he could sell the prints.41 Goupil tried to reproduce works of art from the Louvre collection and even set up a photographic studio in the museum in 1881 to facilitate a book project on the major works of the museum, scheduled for publication in 1886. Unfortunately, under pressure from Braun, Goupil’s studio was closed and the project brought to an untimely end. Only in 1899, was Goupil, now Boussod, Valadon & Cie, able to publish the first volume of its twelve-part luxury series, titled Musée du Louvre: Maîtres de la peinture, in which, in any case, most of the illustrations originate from Braun’s photographs. And, so, it appears that while Goupil came to recognize the rise of interest in the Old Masters, the firm’s attempts to enter this market hit an obstacle at every turn.

Conclusion La Maison Goupil was well known for its audacity, a quality which led it to enjoy a hegemonic position in the market for contemporary art, especially from the midnineteenth century. Yet, in the last decade of the century, the confluence of factors that had contributed to the gallery’s accomplishments suddenly seized up. Losing Adolphe Goupil, its visionary founder, and Knoedler & Co, its greatest ally in America, as well as failing to immerse itself in the Old Master trade when it became the new fashion, surely were all contributing factors to the firm’s decline. La Maison Goupil’s story is one of short-sightedness and missed opportunity, marking the end of a business model that

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had prevailed for well over half a century. It serves to shed light on some hitherto unexplored mechanisms involved in influencing tastes and determining business viability. The Goupil/Boussod-Valadon narrative shows how a dealer was able to develop the taste for European art in America, only to become one of the first victims of the changing art trade at a time when the prompt adaptation to a highly fluctuating market became vital for sustainability and success.

Notes 1

The activities and functions of the firm fell under numerous corporate names between 1846 and 1919: Goupil, Vibert & Cie (1846–50); Goupil & Cie (1850–84); Boussod, Valadon & Cie (1884–1919); Jean Boussod, Manzi, Joyant & Cie (1900–17). For reasons of simplification, art historians tend to use the name ‘Goupil’ generically, applying it to all the above phases. 2 See Cynthia White and Harrison White, Canvases and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting World (New York: Wiley, 1965); Nicholas Green, ‘Circuits of Production, Circuits of Consumption: The Case of Mid-Nineteenth-Century French Art Dealing’, Art Journal 48, no. 1 (1989): 29–34. 3 Agnès Penot, La Maison Goupil: galerie d’art internationale au XIXe siècle (Paris: Mare & Martin, 2017). 4 ‘How We Strip Europe of Her Treasures of Art’, New York Times Magazine, 19 February 1911, 9. 5 The term ‘Old Master’ in this essay is used as per the definition provided in the Introduction of the present volume as esteemed historical European paintings. 6 In 1879, for example, the ‘Hôtel Goupil’ hosted artists such as Charles Jalabert (1819–1901), François Compte-Calix (1813–80), Albert Goupil (1840–84), Théodore Jourdan (1833–1908) and Miguel Zamacoïs (1866–1955). 7 Hélène Lafont-Couturier, ‘La Maison Goupil ou la notion d’œuvre originale remise en question’, Revue de l’art 112, no. 1 (1996): 62. 8 Goupil had branches in London, The Hague, Brussels, Berlin and New York. They also developed business relationships with local dealers and agents. For example, Jean-Léon Gérôme served as agent at the Turkish Court during his stay in 1875–6, and the Melbourne-based dealer P. E. Reynolds was the exclusive distributor of Goupil’s prints in Australia as early as the 1870s. At the Sydney 1879 Exposition Universelle, Goupil registered their prints in the Australian section, under the aegis of their agent Reynolds. 9 Agnès Penot, ‘The Perils and Perks of Trading Art Overseas: Goupil’s New York Branch’, Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 16, no. 1 (Spring 2017), online at: https:// www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring17/penot-on-the-perils-and-perks-of-trading-artoverseas-goupils-new-york-branch (accessed 25 May 2020). 10 Three paintings attributed to Richard Parkes Bonington were later revealed as fakes: Goupil Inventory no. 9715, Surprise; Goupil Inventory no. 9716, Fontaine à Rouen; Goupil Inventory no. 9720, Plage. See the Goupil & Cie/Boussod, Valadon & Cie stock books, The Dieterle Family Records of French Art Galleries (1846–1986), inv. 900239, boxes 1–15, Getty Research Institute (hereafter GRI), Los Angeles; the archives are searchable through ‘Dealer Stock Books’, GRI, database, online at: https://piprod.getty. edu/starweb/pi/servlet.starweb?path=pi/pi.web#? (accessed 25 May 2020).

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11 Goupil Inventory no. 19945, ‘Dealer Stock Books’, GRI. The picture also appeared in Sedelmeyer’s Illustrated Catalogue of 300 Paintings by Old Masters (Paris: Printed for Ch. Sedelmeyer by Lahure, 1898). According to Goupil’s stock book, Montaignac eventually sold the Rembrandt to Richard Mortimer of New York in 1890. 12 Inv. nos 20661–20667, ‘Dealer Stock Books’, GRI. 13 See, for instance, Monique Nonne, ‘Theo van Gogh: His Clients and Suppliers’, Van Gogh Museum Journal (2000): 43. 14 ‘Pandectes périodiques: recueil de jurisprudence, de législation et de doctrine’, case 1064, Boussod, Valadon & Cie vs. Clarembaux, 1892. 15 ‘La peinture contemporaine, qui exploite avec succès la plupart des domaines, n’est demeurée inférieure à elle-même que lorsqu’il s’est agi des sujets religieux’. Publications nouvelles, Boussod, Valadon & Cie, Paris (April 1894), 9. 16 ‘On passait donc à droite dans la demeure plausible d’un prince ou d’un pape opulent du XVe siècle. Ce qui y attirait d’abord l’attention, c’était une monumentale cheminée de pierre à médaillon central, amenée de je ne sais quel château de France.’, in Miguel Zamacoïs, Pinceaux et stylos, c’était hier (Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1948), 102–3. The chimney-piece Zamacoïs refers to also attracted the attention of Émile Molinier, who wrote the inventory of Albert Goupil’s collection for its sale in 1885. Molinier noted that the chimney-piece came from the Château de Montal and had been acquired by Albert in 1881 at auction. See Émile Molinier, ‘La collection Albert Goupil’, La Gazette des beaux-arts 31, 2nd part (1 May 1885): 377–94. 17 Musée du Louvre, Inventory no. RF.679. The painting has since been attributed to Desiderio da Settignano. 18 Dépôt judiciaire du testament olographe de M. Goupil, 15 December 1888, in État Successoral d’Adolphe Goupil, 15 May 1893, inv. ET/XII/1449, Archives Nationales, Paris. 19 ‘. . . Nous verrons que le marché de l’art parisien, en 1900, était un marché segmenté, valorisant les tableaux “modernes” beaucoup plus que les tableaux “anciens” . . .,’ Léa Saint-Raymond, ‘The Parisian Art Market in 1900’, in Grenzgänger der Künste: Spannungfeld Museum im Kunstbetrieb um 1900, ed. Stephanie Marchal and Alexander Linke (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017). Also Chapter 5 by Léa Saint-Raymond in this volume. 20 See David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1991), 25–34. 21 The branch officially opened in 1857 at 17 Southampton Street, London, under the management of the Stuttgart print seller Henry Gutekunst (1833–1914). See Anne Helmreich, ‘The Goupil Gallery’, in The Rise of the Modern Art Market in London, 1850–1939, ed. Pamela Fletcher and Anne Helmreich (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), 65–84. Also Anna Gruetzner Robins, ‘The London Impressionists at the Goupil Gallery: Modernist Strategies and Modern Life’, in Impressionism in Britain, by Kenneth McConkey, exh. cat., Barbican Art Gallery (New Haven, CT, 1995). 22 See Barbara Pezzini’s Chapter 6 in this volume; Jeremy Howard, ‘A Masterly Old Master Dealer of the Gilded Age: Otto Gutekunst and Colnaghi’, in Colnaghi: The History, ed. Jeremy Howard (London: Colnaghi, 2010), 12–19. 23 Cynthia Saltzman, Old Masters, New World: America’s Raid on Europe’s Great Pictures (London: Penguin, 2008), 204. 24 There were, of course, many different markets in which Goupil could have expanded when the Salon model started to fail but the firm attempted to penetrate the Old

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35 36 37

38 39 40 41

Old Masters Worldwide Master market as it shared the same buyers and similar mechanisms. For the success of the Impressionist market in the USA, see Philip Hook, The Ultimate Trophy: How the Impressionist Painting Conquered the World (Munich and New York: Prestel Verlag, 2009). Alfred Trumble, ‘The World of Collectorship’, The Collector 3, no. 7 (1 February 1892): 97. See Inge Reist, ed., A Market for Merchant Princes: Collecting Italian Renaissance Paintings in America (University Park,PA: Frick Collection, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015); Inge Reist, ed., British Models of Art Collecting and the American Response: Reflections Across the Pond (Farnham and BurlingtonVT: Ashgate, 2014); Esmee Quodbach, ed., Holland‘s Golden Age in America: Collecting the Art of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Hals (New York: Frick Collection and Pennsylvania State University, 2014). GRI, M. Knoedler & Co. Records (2012.M.54), letter from Knoedler to Maurice Hamman, 10 March 1893. Inv. no. 1899.1.96. Paintings in the Frick Collection: American, British, Dutch, Flemish and German, Volume I (New York: Frick Collection, 1968). Penot, ‘The Perils and Perks’. Saltzman, Old Masters, New World, 197. Trumble, ‘The World of Collectorship’, 99. According to the Boussod Valadon stock books, inv. no. 22724, Fumeur rose was purchased in December 1892 for $4,700 and sold for $6,000 to J. H. Wade the same day; see GRI, ‘Dealers Stock Books’. ‘The Yerkes Collection Sale’, America 3, no. 1 (16 April 1910): 19. Goupil inv. nos 24890 and 24891. Portrait of Lady de la Warr was exchanged by William Lukens Elkins for Portrait of a Man belonging to Catholina Lambert. Portrait of Lady de la Warr is now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. 30.445); see GRI, ‘Dealers Stock Books’, online at: https://piprod.getty.edu/starweb/pi/servlet. starweb?path=pi/pi.web#? (accessed 25 May 2020). Liste des gravures nouvelles qui paraîtront successivement chez Rittner et Goupil (Paris: Rittner et Goupil, 1838). Claudie Ressort, Murillo dans les musées français (Paris: Réunion des musé es nationaux (RMN), 1983), 62. Geneviève Lacambre, ‘The Discovery of the Spanish School in France’, Manet/ Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting (exh. cat., New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003), 80. Catalogue des publications, n. d., Goupil Archives, Musée Goupil, Bordeaux. Alison McQueen, The Rise of the Cult of Rembrandt: Reinventing an Old Master in Nineteenth-Century France (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2003). Henri Beraldi, Les Graveurs du XIXe siècle, Volume VII (Paris: Conquet, 1892), 178. Archives Nationales, Paris, Inv. F/21/4428 (dossier Braun). See P.-L. Renié, ‘Braun versus Goupil et quelques autres histoires, la photographie au musée du Louvre au XIXe siècle’, in État des lieux (Bordeaux: Musée Goupil, 1999), 97–151.

11

Knoedler and Old Masters in America Inge Reist

By the end of the nineteenth century, the American market for Old Master paintings had begun its steady trajectory to outpace purchases by European collectors who, for a variety of reasons, were increasingly divesting themselves of the great works of art they and their ancestors had acquired decades, even centuries earlier. American industrialists, many primed by travel abroad and eager to affirm or elevate their social standing, took advantage of a market flush with masterpieces emerging from private collections abroad, and did so under the guidance of savvy dealers and advisers. Earlier research has demonstrated how American collectors of the so-called Gilded Age (a period from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century when the American economy prospered and large private and national collections were founded there) emulated and embellished the collecting model established by British collectors and Grand Tourists a century earlier.1 Various agents have been studied, such as Samuel Avery, George Lucas, Mary Cassatt and Roger Fry, who advised and brokered acquisitions for collectors including William Walters, Louisine and H. O. Havemeyer and Henry Clay Frick. In this chapter, by contrast, the focus will be on the role played by M. Knoedler & Co., the art dealer whose stature among Gilded Age American collectors rose during the last decades of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century to become the most trusted source for Old Master pictures.2

The Challenges of the Old Master Market in America Knoedler’s eventual rivals and partners in England – P. & D. Colnaghi, and Thomas Agnew and Sons, among them – had already begun the transition to dealing in Old Master pictures and had, for some time, been taking advantage of a plentiful supply from aristocratic families seeking ready cash through sales of art.3 This was also a period when these dealers began to cultivate an appetite among European and English collectors for works by artists of note with venerated provenances. For Knoedler & Co., such a transition to dealing in Old Masters was a greater challenge than it was for Agnew and Colnaghi, not least because its New York-based gallery was faced with little supply in the United States and the necessity of cultivating demand among newly rich, socially ambitious, but often formally uneducated American millionaires. 195

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For many reasons, one might ask why Roland Knoedler (1856–1932), who, together with his brothers and uncle had inherited the business from his father Michael (1823– 78), would have even bothered to enter the arena of Old Master dealing, because the gallery was enjoying great success selling contemporary art to the nouveaux riches of industrialized America (Fig.  11.1). Michael had initially built that business as the American representative of Goupil & Co., purveyors of prints made after Salon pictures by artists such as Jean-Léon Gérôme and Rosa Bonheur, as Agnès Penot notes in her chapter in this volume.4 In time, once independent of Goupil, however, Knoedler focused less on selling prints and more on the paintings from which the prints were derived.5 Knoedler & Co. skillfully embellished Goupil’s formula, following the money to cultivate clients beyond New York. In Pittsburgh, especially, the fortunes generated by banking and the burgeoning steel industry prompted Knoedler to open a branch there in 1897. Between 1864 and 1911, Knoedler did business with seventy-five Pittsburgh clients, selling them hundreds of paintings, most purchased between 1894 and 1911 by five exceptionally enthusiastic collectors: Charles Lockhart (1818–1905), Alexander McBurney Byers (1827–1900), David Watson (1844–1916), Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) and Andrew W. Mellon (1855–1937). The gallery thus contributed significantly to shaping a taste for the type of contemporary American and French art that it could easily supply.6 Why, then, did – and could – Knoedler shift its principal focus to enter the marketplace for Old Masters? The decisioin necessarily meant pivoting away from the market for contemporary art to a more complex business model in the secondary market in which authenticity, provenance and the ability to outpace the competition to obtain good pictures was of critical importance. The answer rests, above all, with Knoedler’s partner Charles Carstairs (1865–1928), who joined the firm in 1893 to take charge of the Pittsburgh branch of the company, no doubt an opportunity the affable and worldly Charlie Carstairs would have viewed as less than welcome, but a good

Fig. 11.1 Albumen print of the interior of M. Knoedler & Co., 170 Fifth Avenue, corner of 22nd Street, New York, c. 1860–80. New York Public Library.

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career move, nevertheless. Carstairs had noteworthy experience, having worked for eight years for his father-in-law, the Philadelphia dealer Charles Haseltine (1840–1915), and he was quick to discern that Pittsburgh collectors could be guided to appreciate styles and periods of art beyond that of their own time.7 Carstairs was keenly aware that the Pittsburgh art collecting community was a close-knit one, as is evidenced in his acknowledgement of a note from Frick alerting him to the fact that he might be able to do some business in Europe with Frick’s fellow Pittsburgh industrialist and collector Alexander Byers (1862–1948): Your letter announcing the sailing for Europe of the Byers family came duly to hand yesterday. Thank you for your kind thought for us and interest in our affairs. . . . I cabled you asking to ascertain his banker and cable us. I trust this has not put you to any trouble. I would not want to miss him.8

Uneasy Alliances? Purchasing in Joint Account Fortunately for Carstairs – and perhaps because of him – during the years following the turn of the new century, Roland Knoedler recognized that the business of Old Masters was heating up and local collecting in cities such as Pittsburgh was on the decline, as some of the major collecting figures including Byers had died while others, Frick for example, had moved to larger art centres such as New York.9 To position itself well in this new and expanding market for Old Masters, Knoedler logically opened branch offices first in Paris and then, in 1902, in London, placing Carstairs fully in charge of the London operation in 1907.10 There, Carstairs advanced important existing business alliances and cultivated new ones, principally with P. & D. Colnaghi, but also with Thomas Agnew & Sons, and Arthur J. Sulley (1853–1930) at Lawrie & Company. Each transaction, whether executed in partnership with other dealers or independently, demonstrated that Knoedler was interested in what Otto Gutekunst (1865–1947) at Colnaghi dubbed, ‘Big-big, big game’.11 It was Carstairs who was the key figure in ensuring that Knoedler would obtain good results, as he focused intently on pictures of exceptional value and quality that he could see first-hand and could successfully promote to Knoedler’s American clients. Potential purchasers included, but were by no means limited to, private collectors such as Frick, Peter A. B. Widener (1834–1915), Mellon and Philip Lehman (1861–1947), as well as virtually all major American museums.12 On occasion, an important collection would be purchased en bloc and divided among several dealing establishments. A letter from Carstairs to Frick outlines such a division of the Alexander Young Collection between Agnew and Knoedler. In August 1906, Carstairs wrote: The Alexander Young collection has been recently purchased by Agnew and Wallis. They have divided it into 3 parts & given us the first chance at part 1. There is the probability of the balance of the collection going to a public gallery, if not we are also to have 1st crack at part II which will not come about until next March.13

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More common were sales of single important pictures that were held in joint ownership by more than one dealer to minimize risk and maintain liquidity, while still realizing a good profit for each. This was the case for the sale of Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait of 1658, the so-called Ilchester Portrait (Fig. 11.2), to Henry Clay Frick, a transaction concluded in partnership with Colnaghi. As Cynthia Saltzman lucidly recounts, Otto Gutekunst carried on four months of negotiations with Giles Fox-Strangways, 6th Lord Ilchester (1874–1959), who hoped that selling the Rembrandt would be an expedient way of obtaining needed cash to pay crushing inheritance taxes.14 After finally obtaining the picture as a joint Knoedler/Colnaghi purchase, Carstairs and Gutekunst entered into protracted negotiations with Roger Fry (1866–1934) and John Pierpont Morgan (1837– 1913) at the urging of the Florence-based architect, collector and connoisseur Herbert Horne (1864–1916). Fry, as Curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vied for the picture for the museum, hoping Morgan, then President, would purchase it for the institution rather than for himself. Carstairs and Gutekunst even agreed to a mere £1,000 commission should it go to the Met, but ultimately, Morgan backed away, either unwilling to meet Fox-Strangways’ price threshold of £31,000 or peeved that he could not acquire the painting for his personal collection. It was thus an understatement when Carstairs wrote, ‘There are a great many complications about the Rembrandt,’15 another being that, all along, he had wanted to offer the picture to Knoedler’s primary client, Henry Clay Frick. Once Fry indicated that Morgan would ‘do nothing further in the matter of the Rembrandt’,16 Carstairs and Gutekunst initiated negotiations with Frick

Fig. 11.2 Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, 1658. Oil on canvas, 133.7 x 103.8 cm. The Frick Collection, New York.

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over the price. They started at a low point when Knoedler called on Frick at his home and reported to Carstairs that: ‘[h]e was very nice, but looking around, said he had bought sufficiently, & that even at cost he would not be interested in [the picture]’.17 In the end, however, Frick did meet the lowest figure acceptable to Gutekunst ($225,000), so long as he could make partial payment with a $25,000 credit for Jules Breton’s The Last Gleanings, which he had purchased from Knoedler in 1895 for $14,000.18 With Frick’s Velázquez portrait of Philip IV (Fig.  11.3), Knoedler fared better. Working again in concert with others, Carstairs purchased a half interest in the picture from Scott & Fowles and sold half of that to Gutekunst for Colnaghi. The three-way deal thus meant that Scott & Fowles shouldered 50 per cent of both risk and profit and walked away with double the amount realized by the others who still fared well as they shared the $475,000 sale that made headline news.19 In the case of the Velázquez, documents preserved in the Frick archives provide some insight into the cultivation of a client even after the sale – the effort a dealer would expend to give the collector tantalizing gossip or hints of scandal that might attach an additional thrill to the acquisition. On 27 February 1911, only days after Frick’s purchase, Agnew’s junior partner and occasional agent for other dealers, Charles Romer Williams (1885–1926) wrote to Frick to explain that the reason the portrait had even been offered for sale was rooted in a card scandal in aristocratic circles. Well known was the fact that after King Philip V (1683–1746) bequeathed the portrait to his son Philip, founder in 1748 of the house of Bourbon Parma, it travelled for centuries

Fig. 11.3 Diego Velázquez, King Philip IV of Spain, 1644. Oil on canvas, 129.9 x 99.4 cm. The Frick Collection, New York.

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from palace to palace in Switzerland and Austria, remaining by descent in the collections of the Princes of Bourbon-Parma. More recently, according to Williams’ account, a guest of Prince Robert de Bourbon-Parma (1848–1907), ‘Mr X’, had been caught cheating at cards and, while living in hiding in Paris, saw an opportunity for personal profit by using the painting to facilitate an inheritance arrangement for the Bourbon heirs following the death of the Prince. With a cash-poor estate, the only wealthy Bourbon sibling, Prince Elias, married to an archduchess, had agreed to take the portrait in lieu of cash, allowing his many sisters and brothers to maximize their own cash inheritances. Once Frick bought the painting, however, paying far more than the cash payout Elias had foregone, the outraged siblings sought compensation from their brother for the difference. Whether Elias met their demands or if Mr X ultimately realized the profit he sought remains unknown. Williams closed his letter to Frick with a gentle admonition, along with congratulations on the purchase: I thought the story of how the picture ever came to be sold would interest you. I only ask you to keep these facts for your own ears, and those of your personal friends, as some very distinguished people were mixed up in the card scandal, and such an incident is naturally best forgotten. I hope you will not think me inopportune if I congratulate you once more for having secured the picture. I suppose there can be little doubt that it is the greatest picture in the United States today, and that is saying a good deal!20

Among other sales Knoedler brokered in partnership was the rare and exceptional Johannes Vermeer Woman Holding a Balance, in which they acquired a 25 per cent share from Colnaghi in 1910, who then proceeded to carry out the courtship of the eventual buyer, Peter Widener.21 The firm partnered with French dealers on occasion too, for example when they sold El Greco’s Saint Martin and the Beggar to the Chicago collector Charles Deering (1852–1927) in 1922 with a half share belonging to Durand-Ruel.22 Most commonly, however, Knoedler strove to own pictures outright, acquiring them not only from their owners, but also purchasing them from fellow dealers. Such was the case with J. M. W. Turner’s Mortlake Terrace (Fig. 11.4), owned jointly in 1920 by Agnew’s and A. J. Sulley, purchased that year by Knoedler, and months later sold to Andrew Mellon.23 In other cases, the provenance records fail to define the percentages of ownership. For example, in 1900, Lawrie & Co. had purchased Velázquez’s Don Baltasar Carlos with a Dwarf and immediately shipped it to Knoedler, which sold it the following year to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Documents have yet to confirm whether Lawrie still owned all or a percentage of the picture or whether Knoedler was acting as Lawrie’s agent with the expectation of receiving a commission. Other museum sales are easier to untangle, especially when Knoedler purchased a picture at auction. For example, they acquired Titian’s Venus and Adonis at the 1925 Christie’s auction of Lord Darnley’s collection for £2,415 (somewhat less than $12,000 in the currency of the day). Then, sharing the purchase with Colnaghi, Knoedler sold the painting the same year to Jules Bache (1861–1944) for $80,000 (Fig. 11.5).24 It is worth emphasizing that Carstairs made no secret of the business alliances he and Knoedler entered into, and there is no hint of any exploitation of the client in these

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Fig. 11.4 Joseph Mallord William Turner, Mortlake Terrace, 1827. Oil on canvas, 92.1 x 122.2 cm. Andrew W. Mellon Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Fig. 11.5 Knoedler Stock Books. Book 7, Stock No. 16171, p. 92, row 27: ‘Tiziano Vecellio. Venus and Adonis, lot 79 52 x 41¾ [in.]. £2415/Our half Share £1207.10 ($11736.90/$5868.45). April 1927. Jules Bache. City. 25. $80,000’. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.

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dealings, as there was, for example when Bernard Berenson (1865–1959) not unusually took percentages from both buyer and seller when his expertise resulted in successful sales. Numerous letters, such as one concerning Knoedler’s willingness to serve as broker for Frick over the resale of a painting by Joshua Reynolds, make clear that, for a major client, the dealers strove to be accommodating: ‘We will be pleased to sell this picture for your account without charging you any commission except that which we ourselves might have to pay in event of its being sold through another small dealer, which is sometimes the case.’25 Carstairs’ letters are chatty, referencing mutual friends, summer plans, promising a visit or a send-off for a trip as a client embarked on a transatlantic voyage. He called Andrew Mellon ‘My dear Andy’ (something even Mellon’s closest friend Henry Clay Frick resisted) and always sent warm greetings to Mellon’s wife Nora and ‘little Ailsa’.26 The letters are equally artful in their salesmanship, assuring the recipient that he is receiving preferential treatment and right of first refusal. When an important picture came quietly, if not secretly onto the market, Carstairs would use phrases cautioning against letting the word out that it might be available, thus promoting a sense of adventure and intrigue among collectors. For example, with his offer of the extraordinary Cattaneo Van Dycks to Frick, he wrote, ‘[p]lease don’t mention these pictures to anyone. Not a living soul knows about them.’27 Nevertheless, Frick ultimately declined the offer, to Carstairs’ chagrin, and the pictures went to the businessman and collector Peter Widener (1834–1915) as part of a three-way transaction involving Knoedler, Colnaghi and probably Trotti.28 More than developing mutually beneficial alliances and fruitful negotiating skills, both Roland Knoedler and Charles Carstairs successfully cultivated their clients as friends, ready to serve their every need whether recreational or practical. They travelled with the Frick family to Switzerland, Florida, Cuba and France, and Roland offered their daughter Helen the use of his Paris apartment during the First World War.29 Carstairs played cards and golfed with Frick seemingly to the point of exhaustion, writing bemusedly to Roland in April 1912, ‘[a]m kept very busy, he [Frick] wants to play bridge every afternoon & usually golf in the morning which doesn’t give me much time for work in details’.30 And on more than one occasion, Knoedler took responsibility for booking reservations at hotels.31 Knoedler helped in other ways, too, providing services that went well beyond the commerce of art to involve the aftercare and display of a valued client’s collection, arranging for insurance, purchasing covered wire, frames and other practical items. In Frick’s case, they even arranged transport of the collection to and from his country house on the Massachusetts North Shore. By the time Frick started planning his move into his Carrère and Hastings-designed mansion on Fifth Avenue, Carstairs and others at Knoedler had been in constant communication with the interior designer Charles Allom regarding the room dimensions and arrangement of the pictures. In July 1913, for example, Carstairs reported to Frick on his review of the interior plans with Allom, suggesting that the design should be ‘in the direction of simplicity for better spacing for the hanging of your pictures’.32 Fashioning an effective business model for selling Old Masters involved more than letters and customer service, however, and early on Knoedler recognized the value of mounting loan exhibitions. The proceeds realized from admissions were often to

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benefit a charity – The Artist Fund and Artists’ Aid Societies, or the Lisa Day Nursery, for example – but the shows served another purpose too, celebrating paintings ‘sold by the firm’ or ‘Paintings which have passed through the hands of M. Knoedler and Company during the past year.’ Occasionally, the exhibitions focused on a specified theme such as ‘Primitives’ or ‘Classics of the Nude’ and always the lenders ranged from major collectors of the day, Jules Bache and Clarence Mackay (1874–1938), for example, to museums such as the Art Institute of Chicago, and even, rather remarkably, to other dealers including Knoedler’s archrival Joseph Duveen (1869–1939).33

Old Masters from Soviet Russia to the United States Unquestionably, Knoedler’s greatest coup in Old Master picture dealing was the sale of masterpieces from the Hermitage, St Petersburg. David Cannadine and others have described the negotiations in detail, but a quick review seems appropriate in the current context.34 Throughout the late 1920s, rumours abounded that the Soviets were eager to raise cash through the sale of some of the fine art housed in the Hermitage. This was by no means exclusively the royal collection begun by Catherine the Great (1729–96), because it also encompassed art the Soviets had expropriated from private collections such as the Stroganov and Shuvalov families. Indeed, between 1917 and 1928, the Hermitage ‘acquired’ 5,480 paintings, 69,657 prints and 18,648 drawings.35 Much of the art was in storage, with only the finest on display. Also during the 1920s, the loss of government funding and resulting need to become self-sustaining imposed a crushing financial burden on the Hermitage that could hardly be lifted by renting out buildings, charging admission or selling scholarly publications.36 Little by little, following the establishment in 1921 of the State Reserve of Valuables for Foreign Trade, objects were sent to a depository for eventual sale to raise needed cash; but even then, only 60 percent of the proceeds serviced the museum, with the balance going to the State Treasury.37 At first, the sales overseen by the Antiquariat, a subdivision of the Commissariat for Foreign Trade, consisted of objects deemed to be comparatively low in value, mostly applied arts. In 1928, the situation changed dramatically, however: five works of high quality (chosen from a preselected offering of twenty masterpieces by Raphael, Dieric Bouts, Rembrandt and others) were sold to the petroleum magnate Calouste Gulbenkian (1869–1955), who would eventually purchase a total of twenty-eight works over the course of the next two years.38 Also in 1928, an auction held at Lepke in Berlin further diminished the collection.39 Regrettably, the sale results were disappointing, despite the praise offered by Wilhelm von Bode (1845–1929), who wrote that the event signified political and cultural healing after a bruising world war.40 Not everyone agreed with Bode, however. Contradicting him, an arts correspondent for the Münchener Nachrichten wrote on 29 October 1928: ‘We can see no unity of peoples in the fact that in Germany, where private property is protected by laws, works of art appropriated from private art collections will be presented at auction.’41 By 1929, more drastic measures were taken following a second, yet more disappointing auction at Lepke. The lots offered, but later withdrawn, from the

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Stroganov Collection were valued at 4 million marks, 1 million of which was advanced by Lepke. With the sale of the Stroganov objects aborted and the Hermitage one million marks in debt to Lepke, the Antiquariat agreed to offer masterpieces from the museum collection, while also selling others to Gulbenkian and initiating a discreet search further afield for more potential buyers.42 By now, they recognized that only offering acclaimed works of the highest artistic quality in a few secret transactions would bring in the money they needed. This is the moment when Knoedler’s involvement began. During the course of 1929, Knoedler’s director Charles Henschel (1885–1956, Roland’s nephew) learned of the sales to Gulbenkian from Otto Gutekunst, who, together with his Colnaghi partner Gus Mayer (1873–1954, Henschel’s nephew), knew of the likelihood of future sales by the Antiquariat that would be handled by the Berlin dealer Franz Zatzenstein (1900–63), better known today by the name he took when he transferred his business to London, Francis Matthiesen.43 Together, the three dealers crafted the secret deal that would bring some of the greatest masterpieces of Western painting to the United States, but it was Knoedler that took the lead, because in that year following the stock market crash, the firm was best positioned to find a buyer sufficiently wealthy to bankroll the deal up front. Their prime client at the time was Andrew Mellon, a man of tremendous wealth and a keen collector, who had started his art collection fairly late in life and had done so with caution. As Secretary of the US Treasury, an avowed capitalist and a collector not known to buy works of art sight unseen, Mellon would have seemed an unlikely candidate for purchases of art from the Soviet Union, as David Cannadine has observed.44 Nevertheless, during the first months of 1930, Knoedler gently persuaded Mellon to purchase paintings by Van Dyck, El Greco and Holbein from the Hermitage offerings, and this led to Mellon’s full and formal authorization for Knoedler to buy for him ‘certain paintings from the Hermitage Collection in Petrograd’.45 Eventually, twenty pictures were sold to Mellon, in one stroke placing his collection among the most prized ever formed in the United States, boasting three pictures by Raphael (two of which came from the Hermitage), an extraordinary Van Eyck, and exceptional works by Botticelli, Titian and Chardin, among many other masterpieces.46 Later that year, after a visit to the Soviet Union in August, Henschel negotiated the sale to Mellon of a smaller batch of additional pictures including Rubens’ Isabella Brant (now attributed to Anthony van Dyck), Velázquez’s Pope Innocent X and Rembrandt’s so-called The Turk (now called Man in Oriental Costume). Other Knoedler sales of Hermitage pictures continued throughout the early 1930s, mostly to Mellon, but also to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and a handful of other public and private collections.

Conclusion It seems likely that, by 1931, when Mellon finalized his first Hermitage purchases, he had already considered establishing a National Gallery of Art with his own collection at its core, and certainly once he came into possession of the Hermitage windfall the concept was destined to become a reality. However, as Cannadine underscores, as a public figure, Mellon could not openly display in his private home the fruits of a secret

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deal with a communist nation. He, therefore, deeded the pictures to the Andrew W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, keeping them in storage at the Corcoran Gallery, Washington; in 1937, the year of Mellon’s death, the Trust gifted them to the nascent National Gallery of Art in Washington.47 These Hermitage transactions were unquestionably Knoedler’s finest hour from the point of view of bringing exceptional treasures to the United States, but there can be no doubt that it was the respect the firm commanded among its clients and art-dealing counterparts, built up over years, that positioned the gallery to profit from this extraordinary transaction. To be held in high esteem by collectors and fellow dealers was a goal both Roland Knoedler and Charles Carstairs had nurtured since the 1890s, as is well documented in their correspondence. Decades later, Knoedler’s modus operandi still offers a deeply informative view of the marketplace for Old Master pictures during America’s Gilded Age.48

Notes 1

2

3 4 5

6

7

See my ‘Introduction’ for British Models of Collecting and the American Response: Reflections Across the Pond, ed. Inge Reist (Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014), 1–6; Inge Reist, ‘Collecting Alliances in the United States during the Long Nineteenth Century’, in Art Markets, Agents and Collectors: Collecting Strategies in Europe and the United States, 1550–1950, ed. Adriana Turpin (London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming). For an overview of the American art market during the Gilded Age, see Cynthia Saltzman, Old Masters, New World: America’s Raid on Europe’s Great Pictures (New York: Viking, 2008). More specialized in the focus of its individual essays is Lynn Catterson, ed., Dealing Art on Both Sides of the Atlantic, 1860–1940 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2017). For Colnaghi, see Jeremy Howard, Colnaghi, Established in 1760: The History (London: Colnaghi, 2010). For Agnew’s, see Barbara Pezzini’s Chapter 6 in this volume. The most complete recent assessment of the activities of Goupil is Agnès Penot, La Maison Goupil: Galerie d’art international au XIX siècle (Paris: Mare & Martin, 2017). The most comprehensive published account of Knoedler’s activities in America, beginning in 1846 with Michael Knoedler’s opening of the New York branch of Goupil et Cie., and his purchase of that business in 1857, remains DeCourcy E. McIntosh, ‘Demand and Supply: The Pittsburgh Art Trade and M. Knoedler & Co.’, in Collecting in the Gilded Age: Art Patronage in Pittsburgh, 1890–1910, ed. Gabriel P. Weisberg, DeCourcy E. McIntosh, Alison McQueen, and Frick Art and Historical Center (Pittsburgh, PA: Frick Art & Historical Center, 1997), 107–77. The extensive archive of Knoedler & Co. is held at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (hereafter, GRI); much of it is accessible online. Alison McQueen, ‘Private Art Collections in Pittsburgh: Displays of Culture, Wealth, and Connoisseurship’, in Collecting in the Gilded Age, ed. Weisberg et al., 53–105, and specifically for Frick, Byers and Lockhart, 70–82. When Carstairs joined Knoedler & Co., it was a partnership between Michael Knoedler’s brother John and sons Roland, Edmond and Charles, with Roland acting as head of the firm. John’s death in 1893 prompted a sale of much of the company’s

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8

9 10

11 12

13 14 15 16

17 18

19

Old Masters Worldwide inventory (Catalogue of Modern Paintings Belonging to M. Knoedler & Co. to be Sold by Absolute Auction to Settle the Estate of the Late John Knoedler, American Art Association at Chickering Hall, New York, 11–14 April 1893) and, perhaps not coincidentally, Carstairs was brought in as a partner the same year. Roland’s brothers resigned their partnerships in 1896. See McIntosh, ‘Demand and Supply’, 112–13. Although focused on Carstairs as a collector, further valuable information about him and his career may be found in Margaret Iacono, ‘A Dealer Collects: Reconstructing Charles Stewart Carstairs’s Private Art Collection’, Journal of the History of Collections 29, no. 1 (2017): 93–108. The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives, New York, Henry Clay Frick Papers (hereafter, HCFP), Series: Correspondence Carstairs to Frick, letter dated 26 August 1898. Knoedler’s Pittsburgh office closed in 1907. See McIntosh, ‘Demand and Supply’, 167. Iacono, ‘A Dealer Collects’, 96, points out that Carstairs probably played a considerable role in overseeing the London office before 1907, travelling there frequently until the Pittsburgh office closed. Letter from Otto Gutekunst to Bernard Berenson, 20 May 1897, Colnaghi Archives, cited by Saltzman, Old Masters, 185, 297. For example, to Widener, Knoedler sold numerous pictures, usually in partnership with Colnaghi, or, in the case of the 1907 sale of the Cattaneo portraits, with Trotti. See GRI, M. Knoedler & Co. records, approximately 1848–1971 (hereafter Knoedler), Series I, Stock Books [search ‘Cattaneo‘], online at: http://archives2.getty.edu:8082/xtf/view?doc Id=ead/2012.M.54/2012.M.54.xml (accessed 25 May 2020); to Lehman, Knoedler sold Hans Memling’s Portrait of a Young Man, formerly in the Dunn Collection, in 1915, for a total sale price of £25,000, of which Knoedler realized a one-third profit, having joint ownership with Colnaghi and Scott & Fowles; see GRI Knoedler, Series I, Stock Books [search ‘Memling Lehman‘], online at: http://archives2.getty.edu:8082/xtf/view?docId= ead/2012.M.54/2012.M.54.xml (accessed 25 May 2020). HCFP, Series: Correspondence Carstairs to Frick, letter dated 12 August 1906. Saltzman, Old Masters, 180–96. GRI Knoedler Archives, letter from Charles Carstairs to Roland Knoedler, 19 July 1906, cited by Saltzman, Old Masters, 187, 297. Cited by Saltzman, Old Masters, 187, 297: Fry to Deprez at Colnaghi, cabled text scribbled at bottom of letter from Deprez to Fry, 27 July 1906, Metropolitan Museum of Art Archives, New York, Department of European Paintings. GRI Knoedler Archives, letter from Knoedler to Carstairs, 9 November 1906, cited by Saltzman, Old Masters, 188, 297. HCFP, Series I: Purchases, Bill Book no. 2, M. Knoedler & Co. Invoice, 16 January 1907 for Self-Portrait by Rembrandt as well as credit for Breton’s The Last Gleanings. For the original sale, see McQueen, ‘Private Art Collections’, 71. Prior to Knoedler’s involvement, the painting had been purchased by Agnew’s on 25 November 1910 from Prince Elias of Parma for £50,160. On 30 December 1910, Agnew’s junior partner Charles Williams arranged for Scott & Fowles (a New York gallery established around 1905 for whom Williams also served as an agent) to purchase the painting for £83,000, quickly selling 50 per cent to Knoedler, which, in turn, sold 25 per cent to Colnaghi. Carstairs’ and Gutekunst’s correspondence on 7 and 21 February 1911, preserved in the Knoedler and Colnaghi archives, is cited by Saltzman, Old Masters, 229 and 303. The summary of Knoedler’s role in the Getty archives database differs from Saltzman’s account, indicating that ownership of the painting was 50 per cent Agnew and

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22

23

24

25 26

27 28

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50 per cent Knoedler [search Velázquez Frick 1910], online at: http://archives2.getty. edu:8082/xtf/view?docId=ead/2012.M.54/2012.M.54.xml (accessed 25 May 2020) and http://archives2.getty.edu:8082/xtf/view?docId=ead/2012.M.54/2012.M.54.xml;chunk. id=aspace_ref1414_ovn;brand=default (accessed 25 May 2020). This does not take into account Williams’ role in bringing Scott & Fowles into the deal as Agnew backed out. I am very grateful to Barbara Pezzini for untangling the Williams mystery by consulting in the National Gallery Archives, NGA27/1/1/11, the Agnew’s Stock Book 9, no. 3519, on my behalf. Supporting this is Carstairs’ letter to Frick dated 21 February 1911, referencing ‘partners in the Velazquez’, and a letter of 27 February 1911 from Charles Williams to Frick on Scott & Fowles letterhead (see the Art Collecting Files of Henry Clay Frick, Purchases. Velazquez, Diego; The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives). That file also contains a clipping from the Pittsburgh Chronicle Telegraph, dated 1 March 1911, noting this purchase as the ‘largest sale of the year’. Documents and scrapbooks relating to the firm Scott & Fowles are held at the Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution, as are the papers of the dealer/connoisseur Martin Birnbaum, who joined the firm in 1916, after Frick’s purchase of the Velázquez. HCFP, Series: Correspondence, Williams to Frick, letter dated 27 February 1911. For the full provenance, including the arrangement between Colnaghi and Knoedler, see the catalogue entry for Vermeer’s Woman Holding a Balance, acc. no. 1942.9.97, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, online at: https://www.nga.gov/collection/ art-object-page.1236.html#entry (accessed 25 May 2020). See Rebecca Long, ‘El Greco in Chicago’, in El Greco Comes to America: The Discovery of a Modern Old Master, ed. Inge Reist and José Luis Colomer (New York: The Frick Collection and Madrid: Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica and Center for Spain in America, 2017), 196. For Durand-Ruel and Spanish Old Masters, see Chapter 7 by Véronique Gerard Powell in this volume. See the catalogue entry for J. M. W. Turner’s Mortlake Terrace, acc. no. 1937.1.109, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, online at: https://www.nga.gov/collection/ art-object-page.116.html (accessed 25 May 2020). Sale, Important Pictures by Old Masters, The Property of the Rt. Hon. The Earl of Darnley, Cobham Hall, Christie’s, London, 1 May 1925, lot 79. GRI, Knoedler Archive, Stock Books Knoedler Book 7, Stock No. 16171, p. 92, row 27 (search Titian Bache), online at: http://archives2.getty.edu:8082/xtf/view?docId=ead/2012.M.54/2012.M.54. xml (accessed 25 May 2020) and http://archives2.getty.edu:8082/xtf/view?docId=ead/2 012.M.54/2012.M.54.xml;chunk.id=aspace_ref1414_ovn;brand=default (accessed 25 May 2020). HCFP, Series: Correspondence, Carstairs to Frick, letter dated 19 February 1902. Knoedler letter book, 1906–7, letter from Charles Carstairs to Andrew Mellon, 28 December 1906, as cited in The Rise of the Art World in America: Knoedler at 150: An Historical Exhibition, Sam Hunter and Melissa De Medeiros, organizers (New York: Knoedler & Company, 1996). Also David Cannadine, Mellon: An American Life (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), 158. HCFP, Series: Correspondence, Carstairs to Frick, letter dated 18 February 1907. Ibid., letter dated 1 July 1908: ‘I am writing to tell you that I sold Widener when in Paris the 3 Van Dycks, “The Lady & Parasol” & the 2 children. My feelings on the subject are somewhat mixed – I always expected you to take this grand picture & longed to see it in your gallery & in your possession.’ See Martha Frick Symington Sanger, Helen Clay Frick: Bittersweet Heiress (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008), 105, 111.

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30 Letter from Charles Carstairs to Roland Knoedler, 2 April 1912, as cited in The Rise of the Art World. 31 For example, HCFP, Series: Correspondence, Carstairs to Frick, cable dated 17 May 1901: ‘Apartment reserved Claridges’. 32 Ibid., letter dated 11 July 1913. 33 See, for example, the preface for the Loan Exhibition of Old Masters, Knoedler, New York, 1912: ‘M. Knoedler & Co. in formally opening their new Building beg to thank their patrons for their great generosity in making the Loan Exhibition of Old Masters (which have been sold by the firm) of such interest and importance. It has been decided to give the proceeds of the exhibition to the Artists’ Fund and Artists’ Aid Societies, who have in common the object of assisting unfortunate artists’. 34 Cannadine, Mellon, 418–27; Elena Solomakha, ‘The Hermitage, Gosmuzeifond, and Antikvariat’, in Treasures into Tractors: The Selling of Russia’s Cultural Heritage, 1918–1938, ed. Anne Odom and Wendy R. Salmond (Washington, DC: Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, 2009), 111–35; and Yelena Solomakha, ‘The Destruction of the Hermitage’, in Selling Russia’s Treasures: The Soviet Trade in Nationalized Art, 1917–1938, ed. Natalya Semyonova and Nicolas V. Iljine (Paris: M.T. Abraham Center for the Visual Arts Foundation, and New York: Abbeville Press, 2013), 128–223. 35 Solomakha, ‘The Hermitage, Gosmuzeifond’, 114. 36 Ibid., 115. 37 Ibid., 115. 38 Ibid., 118–19. 39 Rudolph Lepke’s Kunst-Auctions-Haus, Berlin. Kunstwerke aus den beständen Leningrader Museen und Schlösser Eremitage, Palais Michaeiloff Gatschina U.A. Im Auftrag der Handelsvertretung der Union der Sozialistischen Sowjet-Republiken, 6–7 November 1928. 40 Lepke, Kunstwerke, n. p., concluding paragraph of preface by Wilhelm von Bode ‘[diese] Auktion . . . ist zugleich ein Bindeglied, das, durch den Weltkrieg zerrissen, der Zusammenarbeit der Völker auf kulturellem Gebiet dient und neue Brücken schlagen soll’. Translated in Solomakha, ‘The Hermitage, Gosmuzeifond’, 119: ‘This auction represents that binding link that was sundered by the world war; it facilitates the unity of peoples in the realm of culture and should help to build new bridges.’ 41 As cited and translated in Solomakha, ‘The Hermitage, Gosmuzeifond’, 119. 42 For analysis of the disastrous results of the Antikvariat’s complex negotiations and attempted compensations for Lepke, and their revived dealings with Gulbenkian, see Solomakha, ‘The Hermitage, Gosmuzeifond’, 119–26, and, especially for the personalities involved, Solomakha, ‘The Destruction of the Hermitage’, 130–6. 43 Cannadine, Mellon, 418–27, skillfully summarizes the alliance between the three dealers and their negotiations with Andrew Mellon. 44 Ibid., 418. 45 Ibid., 419–20. 46 Ibid., 420. 47 Ibid., 426–7. 48 The gallery continued to thrive in Old Master picture-dealing until the late 1970s, when, following its 1971 purchase by Armand Hammer (who ironically had been offered the Hermitage pictures prior to Knoedler’s involvement), the focus of the gallery shifted to the secondary market for twentieth-century art, never to realize again the level of success it had enjoyed during its heyday. Too numerous to list individually are the articles that appeared in The New York Times and other

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newspapers after the announcement of the gallery’s closing. For that, see Patricia Cohen, ‘A Gallery that Helped Create the American Art World Closes Shop after 165 Years’, The New York Times, 30 November 2011. Other articles about lawsuits and ongoing legal settlements relating to Knoedler appeared in The Times throughout 2013, 2016 and 2017.

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Trust, Friendship and Politics in the Old Master Market: Duveen and the State Art Collection of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia Jelena Todorović

A history of the Old Master market in Europe and, even more so, in the United States of America of the 1920s and 1930s is impossible to imagine without Joseph Duveen (1869–1939).1 Even if much has been written about Duveen, very little is known of the decisive role he played in the creation of the State Art Collection of the Court Royal Compound in Belgrade (Državna umetnička kolekcija Dvorskog kompleksa) in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and, consequently, of the influence he had on art collecting in this newly founded country in the Balkans. This chapter sheds new light on the role of Duveen in the foundation of the State Art Collection and on his collaboration and friendship with Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (Pavle Karađorđević, 1893–1976). It shows how personal connections and trust continued to be crucial elements in the Old Master market in the twentieth century as much as they had been in previous times, as demonstrated in case studies presented in earlier chapters of this book. In the case under review here, the friendship between Duveen and Prince Paul was rather different, being detatched from broader commercial interests: Duveen did not have any other trade activities in this part of the world, neither in Yugoslavia nor in the Balkans, since there was no established art market there. Moreover, there was not much disposable income to buy art in Yugoslavia, the country having been considerably impoverished by events associated with the First World War and the preceding First and Second Balkan Wars of 1912–13.2 The prince and the dealer’s successful association, however, was crucial to the country: not only did Duveen shape Prince Paul’s personal collection and the State Art Collection of the Royal Compound, but also, as we shall see, he helped to establish the Museum of Modern Art in Belgrade.

A New Collection for a New State The State Art Collection, comprising European and Yugoslav historic, modern and contemporary works of art, had a rich and distinctive history. It was symbolically 211

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founded in December 1929 by King Alexander (Aleksandar Karađorđević, 1888–1934) at the same time as the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and the last works were added to it in the late 1970s, just before the death of President Tito in 1980. Although, on account of its contents and its historical importance, the State Art Collection forms a notable part of the European and Yugoslav cultural heritage, the collection has never been fully researched and has until recently remained virtually unknown, even within the borders of Yugoslavia. Because the collection was created to be representative of the state itself, and was aimed at a specific audience of diplomats and foreign high state officials, the collection was not publicly open to visitors until 2001. And it was only in 2010 that the State Art Collection was officially proclaimed a part of the country’s national heritage while a complete catalogue of its fine arts collection was printed for the first time some four years after that, in 2014.3 Thus, for a long time, it remained utterly invisible to scholars both inside and outside Yugoslavia. Despite the pivotal – predominantly financial – role that King Alexander had in the formation of the State Art Collection, its real founder was his cousin Prince Paul, who devoted a great deal of time and knowledge and, most importantly, shared his valuable contacts to assist in this endeavour. A collector himself, Prince Paul was very well connected in the international art world of the 1920s and 1930s, counting among his close friends Bernard Berenson (1865–1959), Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) and, above all, Joseph Duveen.4 Even though Prince Paul was interested in state matters and, in 1934, after his cousin’s assassination, became Prince Regent of Yugoslavia, his lifelong passion remained the pursuit of cultural refinement and the collection of works of art. Highly educated and a true connoisseur (Prince Paul read Classics at Christ Church, University of Oxford), he built up a profound knowledge of European art and its collections. It was in the years immediately following his graduation in 1920 that he made some of the most important friendships in his career: first with Berenson and later with Clark. He was a frequent guest of the Berensons in their famous Villa I Tatti near Florence, and he often accompanied Berenson on his travels through Italy in the early 1920s.5

Duveen and Prince Paul: Friends with Benefits It was through Berenson that Prince Paul became acquainted with Joseph Duveen and, as with Berenson, the cooperation and friendship between them lasted a lifetime. Extant correspondence, held in the Duveen Brothers Records at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, illustrates their friendship, which extended to their families. Joseph Duveen and his wife Elsie (née Salamon, 1879–1963) were frequent guests both in Belgrade and in Paul’s summer residence in Bohinj, Slovenia.6 During the 1920s and early 1930s, Prince Paul and his wife, Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark (1903–97), spent long periods in England and always visited the Duveens in London, greatly enjoying their company. They exchanged family photographs and Duveen expressed delight at the birth of the Prince’s children.7 In their letters, addressed to ‘My dear Sir Joseph’ and ‘Dear Prince Paul,’ one can follow particular negotiations between art dealer and collector, and also, more generally,

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learn about the difficulties of the art business in the depressed economic climate of the 1930s.8 For instance, in 1934, Duveen wrote to Prince Paul: ‘As for ourselves, I am glad to say that we are both [he and Elsie] very well, and I am much encouraged by the improvement in business as far as we are concerned. We are really doing much better than one could expect in these days, and I feel that my ever-present optimism is justified.’9 In 1933, Prince Paul admitted to Duveen the challenges of his new position as a Regent after his cousin’s assassination, revealing his longing to be exclusively a connoisseur and collector, free from the constant demands of political obligation. To this, Duveen answered: You imply in your letter that you envy BB [Bernard Berenson] his freedom and independence. We would all like to be free agents, and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be with you in Europe . . . But I suppose it is impossible to assume the responsibility of Power without personal sacrifice.10

The collaboration between Prince Paul and Duveen, commenced well before the State Art Collection was envisaged and initially concerned the Prince’s personal art collection and the foundation of the Belgrade Museum of Modern Art in July 1929. Without taking into consideration these two preliminary fruitful episodes, it is impossible to understand the trust and confidence between Prince Paul and Joseph Duveen that marked the subsequent creation of the State Art Collection.11 Indeed, the first recorded contact between Duveen and Prince Paul occurred in 1924, and regarded Paul’s private collection. At the time, Prince Paul wanted to sell the most valuable painting in his possession, The Forest Fire by Piero di Cosimo, believed to be one of the finest pictures by this early Renaissance artist. Nowadays, this painting belongs to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the institution having bought it in 1933.12 Kenneth Clark, Keeper at the Ashmolean as well as a friend of Prince Paul’s, influenced this negotiation and ensured its acquisition by the museum for which he was then working.13 Prince Paul made occasional yet careful purchases: he had a relatively small budget for personal collecting and therefore had to make calculated purchases, often selling some work from his collection to fund a new acquisition, as was the case with the sale of the Forest Fire.14 Gift-giving to clients was an established practice of the Duveen Brothers, and was a strategy regularly employed by Joseph Duveen, in particular, to reinforce his relationship with principal clients.15 In the case of Prince Paul, the relationship was similar to that which developed between Duveen and Wilhelm von Bode (1845–1929), Director of the Berlin museums, as described by Catherine Scallen in this book. As their friendship developed, Prince Paul was offered personal gifts from Joseph Duveen, which he largely refused as he did not want to feel indebted, yet whenever Duveen offered works of art as gifts to the Yugoslavian collections, these were happily accepted by the prince.16 On exceptional occasions, however, Prince Paul did accept paintings by Duveen as a sign of friendship. For instance, in October 1933, Duveen personally donated to the prince the painting depicting the Triumphal Procession with Prisoners by the Italian Renaissance painter Andrea Schiavone.17 The choice of Schiavone, an artist from Dalmatia and thus the Prince’s compatriot, shows

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the careful attention that Duveen paid to Prince Paul, who commented enthusiastically on the gift:18 I must confess that I have hesitated all this time whether I ought to accept such a beautiful gift. I thought that it was much too kind of you . . . But then, you have always been such a friend, and so invariably kind to me, and I like the picture so much not only because it was painted by a countryman, but also because of its high artistic merits . . . I will keep it as a precious memento of your friendship, which goes back to a good number of years already.19

In parallel to his private art collecting of Old Masters, Prince Paul had begun the creation of the future public Museum of Modern Art, and confided his idea from the outset to Duveen: Now I feel I must tell you about a thing I have very near to my heart and which is keeping me very busy just now. I have decided to organise a Museum of Modern Art in Belgrade as that town, I am sorry to say, lacks completely such an institution.20

The date of this letter confirms that the foundation of the museum, which would bring to Belgrade some works by important modern artists, was conceived in 1925.21 Since the fledgling state – at the time still the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes – had scarce financial resources, Duveen expressed himself willing to donate a number of works to the museum. In addition, he used his contacts to attract other benefactors to it, notably Maud Burke, Lady Cunard (1872–1948), Queen Alexandra (1844–1925) and Bernard Berenson.22 Prince Paul was delighted and proposed that Duveen, who had already been knighted in 1919 in Britain for his donations to UK museums, should receive a decoration from the State of SHS (Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) in recognition of his similar kindness to the Serbian state. A letter from Duveen’s offices of 13 November 1925 states that: We showed him [Prince Paul] the pictures that Sir Joseph had picked out for him before leaving for America, and he was immensely delighted with them. We also told him that there were two more coming from America. . . . And he exclaimed ‘How extremely thoughtful and kind Sir Joseph is! I have been speaking to the Serbian Government, and we were wondering whether Sir Joseph, in recognition of his kindness, would accept a decoration’.23

Duveen gathered a selection of works by contemporary British artists including Augustus John, Duncan Grant, Roger Fry and James Manson for the newly founded Museum of Modern Art in Belgrade. He also donated a canvas by the Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro. All these paintings, before being shipped to Belgrade, were put on display in London in February 1929.24 If, undoubtedly, the organization of such an event gave eminence and prestige to Duveen, cultural politics were its hidden agenda: this exhibition presented the state of Yugoslavia as a

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place of intense cultural development and showcased the ‘modernization’ of its structures as aligned with the other advanced European countries. There was no direct connection, however, between Duveen’s role in the forming of the State Art Collection and the official diplomatic relations between Yugoslavia and Britain. On the contrary, King Alexander was much better disposed towards Russia, namely to the exiled ‘White’ Russians who came to the Balkans in droves after the Revolution. This allegiance to the exiled Russians was evident in his political as well as his artistic choices – for instance, the architect of the Royal Palace was the Russian Nikolay Krasnov. As the king left all the matters of the State Art Collection to his cousin (except finances), he also agreed to Prince Paul’s choice of its principal dealer. Duveen was chosen principally because of his acknowledged expertise and renown.

The Perfect Realm of Dedinje The year 1929 was crucial for Yugoslavia and its artistic heritage. When the new Kingdom of Yugoslavia was proclaimed on 1 December, King Alexander commissioned a new Royal Palace at Dedinje (Fig. 12.1), and the creation of a national art collection for ceremonial purposes soon became an important discussion point. This collection was only ever intended as an official place to represent the state for the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (and, later, for the Republic of Yugoslavia under President Tito). Its function was purely formal and diplomatic and its creation can be compared to the founding of

Fig. 12.1 The State Art Collection in the Royal Palace at Dedinje, Belgrade. Photograph by the author.

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an early modern princely collection rather than to the establishment of public national art museums in Europe, such as the Louvre in Paris or the National Gallery in London.25 In establishing the State Art Collection, King Alexander and Prince Paul not only wished to acknowledge the tradition of princely collecting, but also to emulate symbolically, through the works they collected, their illustrious Renaissance predecessors.26 In particular, King Alexander was inspired by the notion of aristocratic collecting of the Old Masters from early modern times up to the late nineteenth century. Because of the past five centuries of Ottoman occupation, Yugoslavia did not possess a landed-gentry class, with the freedom and the means to collect such art. Given this absence, King Alexander and Prince Paul stepped in to fill the gap with their new purchases. These strove to respond to political and connoisseurial interests alike, acting simultaneously as both a personal and a state art collection.27 The same effort that went into creating the State Art Collection is visible in the architecture of the Royal Palace in Dedinje, where the pictures were displayed. The palace’s interior was created in a neo-Renaissance style by Bernhard Ludwig, an esteemed Austrian designer (Fig. 12.2). The entire space, including furniture, cassetted painted ceilings, doors and parquet floors, worked symbiotically with the carefully chosen Old Master paintings to create a palace befitting a ‘new Renaissance prince’ – the kind of ruler that King Alexander envisaged himself as being. Because there was no developed Old Master market within the national boundaries, all purchases had to be made abroad. Whilst a number of other dealers and galleries became involved with acquisitions for the State Art Collection, none had the same

Fig. 12.2 The interior of the White Palace, Belgrade, 1936. State Art Collection, Belgrade. Archives of Yugoslavia, Belgrade.

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decisive influence as the firm of Duveen Brothers. Joseph Duveen assumed a particularly pivotal role in this endeavour: he was the principal consultant for the collection as well as the supplier of its most important acquisitions. The best example of the close co-operation and trust between Duveen and Prince Paul in creating the State Art Collection is the case of a loan of a group of pictures obtained by Duveen Brothers in December 1933. At this point, the prince asked the dealer to borrow some important paintings to fill the empty walls of Dedinje Palace, which was going to host the state visit of Boris III, King of Bulgaria. The importance of the visit required major works of art and thanks to the long-standing friendship between Prince Paul and Duveen, a shipment of appropriate Old Masters was sent to Dedinje. As Duveen instructed his offices: The Prince advised us that we had better send the Van Dyck and some other pictures to fill his rooms as now he started purchasing (for the new court) the empty walls looked worse and his cousin was very anxious to make a show as he was receiving the visit of the king of Bulgaria shortly. We have therefore had the Van Dyck sent from London and five pictures from New York: the Cosimo Ros[s]elli from Lewinson, the Bartolomeo Veneto from Benson, the Portrait of a Bearded Man, School of Giorgione ex. Benson, the Portrait of another Bearded Man (ex Bassano) ex Lord Esher, and the Cima ‘Holy Family’ from Salomon.28

Although no works were subsequently purchased for the State Art Collection from this particular dispatchment, this loan is still of considerable historical significance with many strands of influence – political, commercial and personal – bearing on it. On the one hand, the loan illustrates perfectly the role of the State Art Collection as a representation of the embodied politics of a nation, demonstrating the political necessity for the young state to be able to present itself as aligned with the ideals of other principal European monarchies. This it could do through a willingness and ability to participate in European culture. On the other hand, it was a personal event commemorating a longstanding and trusting friendship. While Prince Paul benefited, so did Duveen. The astute dealer understood that by lending these pictures to the King and Prince Paul, there was a greater likelihood that some paintings would remain in Belgrade as purchases. It should not be forgotten that Duveen was a merchant par excellence of great personal charm and commercial abilities, as expressed by one of his most famous reported sayings: ‘When you pay a high price for the priceless, you are getting it cheap!’29 Just as his connections with great public museums, such as the Tate Gallery and the National Gallery in London, brought him prestige – he served, for instance, as a Trustee at the latter from 1929 to 1936 – Joseph Duveen also used his relationship with Prince Paul and King Alexander both to gain prestige through having crowned heads among his clients and to extend his reach beyond Western Europe.30 The scope of influence that Duveen enjoyed through the development of the State Art Collection of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, however, differed from what he achieved with his connection with the National Gallery. If through the latter institution he gained a sense of legitimacy and a higher social standing in the British cultural sphere, what he gained

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from the relationship in Yugoslavia was quite different. Here, Duveen enjoyed mixing with royalty, and gathering titles, honours and social status, and possibily used this connection to sell works that he had initially attempted to find homes for elsewhere. By the 1930s, when the Old Master market was in crisis and British and American markets were suffering a downturn, Yugoslavia represented a potential new area for expansion.31 As with his other important clients, Duveen established with Prince Paul and King Alexander the practice of making prolonged loans of paintings for sale in order to enable them to be viewed and appreciated by prospective purchasers. One such instance was the ‘loan’ made during March 1932 of a painting that would become one of the gems of the State Art Collection: Rembrandt’s Quintus Fabius Maximus. Duveen had bought this masterpiece from the Nemesz Collection Sale in Munich that year.32 After extensive negotiations, King Alexander decided to buy it for the state collection. It disappeared from the White Palace during the Second World War and was taken to Germany as a part of the loot for Hitler’s projected Führermuseum in Linz, Austria. Despite rumours of its whereabouts being banded around for decades, it is now known that it was destroyed in the bombing of a warehouse in Augsburg in early 1944.33 The State Art Collection was constituted from its foundation of two fundamental entities – the collection of Yugoslav art and the collection of European art. Although its European holdings are more prominent in this chapter due to the involvement of Duveen Brothers in its creation, any true assessment of the State Art Collection cannot be made without a consideration of its Yugoslav element. From the outset, King Alexander and Prince Paul acquired works by the most eminent contemporary Yugoslav artists, thus ensuring that the young state would be appropriately represented in its national collection. Considering that the Kingdom of Yugoslavia had been proclaimed only recently and that it encompassed diverse peoples from across the Balkan region, an image of a nation built on perfect and continuous unity had to be projected, even if this was not based on historical fact. While the contemporary art of Yugoslavia was chosen as witness to a modern state enlivened through powerful local creative talent, the role of the historical European art collection stood as witness to Yugoslavia’s longstanding place in European cultural history. Given its entwined two-fold message, the decision was taken to impose no chronological, cultural or geographic narrative on the pictures in the State Art Collection. Instead, pictures were chosen for their subject matter and an arrangement devised which emphasized visions of ideal realms that were supposed to convey the values embedded in the state of the Yugoslavian people. The preferred model of this ideal realm was the depiction of Arcadian landscapes, a ‘perfect realm’ of peace and plenty. Consequently, representative examples of this kind of subject matter by the most esteemed early modern artists were particularly sought after, and were obtained through Joseph Duveen. The Arcadian landscape by Nicolas Poussin of Three Monks (La Solitude) (Fig. 12.3) that entered the collection in 1931, encapsulates perfectly this cherished ideal. It is one of the most important late spiritual landscapes by Poussin, and was mentioned in the first catalogue of Poussin’s paintings by André Félibien in 1666 as an exceptionally significant work.34 Duveen secured it from Julius Böhler in Munich, and, after lengthy negotiations due to the high price that Böhler initially put on it,

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Fig. 12.3 Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with Three Monks (La Solitude), 1648–50. Oil on canvas, 117 x 93 cm. State Art Collection, Belgrade.

Prince Paul acquired it in 1931. Ever since, it has been one of the key works in the European collection, and it was also one of the few works to be exhibited abroad before the Second World War, at the Royal Academy in London, in 1932.35 This Poussin landscape fulfilled many roles: it denoted a timeless age, the perfected realm of Arcadia, and acted as the symbolic ambassador of Yugoslavia in the London show. It also underlines (as do many other cases in this book), how much the Old Master market facilitated the circulation of ideas and values throughout Europe at the time. A particularly important chapter in the history of the State Art Collection and the history of cooperation between Prince Paul and Joseph Duveen was the purchase of works from the famous collection of Italian art that had belonged to Robert Henry Benson (1850–1929).36 Following advice received from Bernard Berenson, Duveen had purchased the entire Benson Collection at auction in London in 1927.37 At that time, the Benson Collection was one of the most esteemed groupings of Old Masters then in private hands and its value was confirmed by the catalogue, written by the historian Tancred Borenius and published in 1926. A copy of the catalogue was purchased that same year for the court library in Belgrade. With Joseph Duveen’s mediation and following the advice received from Berenson, Prince Paul and King Alexander bought from the Benson Collection some of the most significant works now in the State Art Collection: two paintings by Palma Vecchio, The Holy Family (Fig. 12.4) and Portrait of a Young Man; The Abduction of Europa by Veronese; and Cloelia’s Flight (Fig.  12.5) by Domenico Beccafumi.38 The purchase of works for the European art section of the State Art Collection created a solid foundation for its future development.

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Fig. 12.4 Palma Il Vecchio, Holy Family with Saint John, Saint Catherine and a Donor, c. 1526. Oil on panel, 104 x 167 cm. State Art Collection, Belgrade.

Fig. 12.5 Domenico Beccafumi, The Flight of Cloelia, c. 1530. Oil on panel, 122 x 74 cm. State Art Collection, Belgrade.

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These Italian works reflected the sublime ideals of harmony and beauty and that perfect realm that Prince Paul strove to actualize in the state for which he was the figurehead, whilst also reaching the high connoisseurial standards necessary for new acquisitions to safeguard the reputation of the fledgling State Art Collection.

Conclusion Duveen died in 1939, and so did not witness the dramatic end of his friend’s life. As Regent, Prince Paul signed, in March 1941, a Tripartite Act with Nazi Germany in the hope of sparing his country from occupation. Notwithstanding, the country was invaded by the Germans, with the result that Paul was exiled from Yugoslavia and the United Kingdom, first to Greece and then to Kenya, with his vision for his country in tatters.39 He was not allowed to return to Yugoslavia and not being granted asylum in the United Kingdom, he spent his last years in Paris. Despite this unhappy end of one of its founders, the State Art Collection continued its existence after the Second World War. It stands today as an important monument to the people involved in its formation and to the nation(s) it represented. The role of Duveen is likewise still visible in the holdings of its European collection, the paintings acting as visual reminders of the interventions of his firm throughout Europe on behalf of the newly founded Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Through the collecting and display of these paintings, Duveen and Prince Paul demonstrated the distinctive role that Old Masters assumed in the political presentation of the state. The Old Master paintings were imaginary ambassadors, which, by presenting the ideals that shaped one nation’s past and another’s future, created what Prince Paul envisioned as an ideal living environment for the new state – one which he might have described as a peaceable kingdom.

Notes 1

2

For biographies of Joseph Duveen and Duveen Brothers, but with the caveats expressed by Catherine Scallen in her Chapter 8 in the current volume, see Samuel N. Behrman, Duveen (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1952); Philip Hook, Rogues Gallery: A History of Art and its Dealers (London: Profile Books, 2017), 73–93; Meryl Secrest, Duveen: A Life in Art (New York: Knopf, 2004); Colin Simpson, Artful Partners: Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen (New York: Macmillan, 1986). In 1918, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (what in 1929 would become the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) emerged profoundly impoverished from the First World War. It did not possess any economic foundation for the creation of a successful Old Master market. The existing collectors were few and far between, and they usually made their purchases in the auction houses of Paris, London or nearby Vienna and Munich. It was a personal friendship that brought Joseph Duveen to Yugoslavia rather than the already established market in which he could position himself. The market for contemporary art, however, was in a much better shape. Artists were able to present and sell their works in important exhibitions that took place regularly in Belgrade, Zagreb and Ljubljana, where one of the main buyers was the state itself. On the history

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3

4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Old Masters Worldwide of Yugoslavia; see: Ljubodrag Dimic, Kulturna politika Kraljevine Jugoslavije, 1918– 1941 (Beograd: Stubovi kulture, 1996), Ljubodrag Dimic, Istorija Srpske drzavnosti (Novi Sad: SANU, 2001) and Ivan Becić, Finansijska istorija SHS (Beograd, 2003). The project for Research and Cataloguing of the State Art Collection, established by the Ministry of Culture of Serbia in 2006, aimed to protect and present for the first time this important part of the European cultural heritage. For the results of the project, see Jelena Todorović and Biljana Crvenković, Catalogue of the State Art Collection of the Royal Compound in Belgrade (Novi Sad: Platoneum, 2014). This project, in 2018, received the highest European Union prize for Cultural Heritage: Europa Nostra Award for Research 2018. Prince Paul’s legacy is preserved in the Archives of Yugoslavia (AJ Fund 74). For secondary sources, see Neil Balfour and Sally Mackay, Paul of Yugoslavia: Britain’s Maligned Friend (London: Hamilton, 1980). For Prince Paul as a collector and the foundation of the Museum of Modern Art, see Irina Subotić, ‘Prince Paul Karađorđević: Art Collector’, in The Prince Paul Museum (Belgrade: Narodni muzej, 2011), 137–55. ‘Travels with Bernard Berenson in Italy’, Getty Research Institute (hereafter, GRI), Duveen Brothers records, 1925–1940, box 497, reel 352. GRI, Duveen Brothers records, 1925–1940, box 497, reel 352.13.03.1930. Ibid., 30.09.1930. Ibid., 12.01.1934. Ibid., 12.01.1934. Ibid., 27.04.1935. In the case of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the involvement of Duveen Brothers was confined to their dealings with Prince Paul and the state in the aforementioned instances. Piero’s The Forest Fire (inv. no. WA1933.2) was bought for the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, in 1933 from Duveen with the help of The Art Fund. See Subotić, ‘Prince Paul’, 137–55. In 1929, he sold, via Duveen, his Poussin (now Madrid, Museo del Prado), and, in 1937, he sold his Breughel, via Duveen, to the Museo di Sao Paolo in Brazil. For the issue of Duveen and gift-giving, see M. Secrest, Duveen: A Life in Art (New York: Knopf, 2004). For Duveen’s gifts to the Modern Art Museum in Belgrade, see GRI, Duveen Brothers records, 1925–1940, box 497, reel 352, 13.11.1925. This painting was bought by Duveen with other works from the Benson Collection in 1927. GRI, Duveen Brothers records, 1925–1940, box 497, reel 352, 23.10.1933. At the time of the gift, the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia was an integral part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. GRI, Duveen Brothers records, 1925–1940, box 497, reel 352, 23.10.1933. Ibid., 04.09.1925. For extensive information on the creation of the Modern Art Museum in Belgrade founded by Prince Paul, see Subotić, ‘Prince Paul’, 137–55. For more information about the donations to the Museum, see ibid., 137–55. GRI, Duveen Brothers records, 1925–1940, box 497, reel 352, 13.11.1925. ‘British Pictures in Belgrade’, Daily Express, 11 February 1929; GRI, Duveen Brothers records, 1925–1940, box 497, reel 352, 11.02.1929 newspaper cutting. See Todorović and Crvenković, Catalogue of the State Art Collection.

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26 For the tradition of princely collecting, see J. Elsener and R. Cardinal, eds, The Cultures of Collecting (London: Reaktion Books, 1994), in particular the essay by Thomas de Costa Kaufmann, ‘From Treasury to Museum: The Collections of the Austrian Habsburgs’, 137–54. Also Charles Sebag-Montefiore and James Stourton, British as Art Collectors: From the Tudors to the Present (London: Scala, 2012), and the primary text for collecting in the early modern age: Francis Haskell, Princes and Patrons: A Study in the Relations of Italian Art Society in the Age of the Baroque (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980). 27 By creating the personal and state collections, Prince Paul not only brought important works of art into the Yugoslav sphere but also set a valuable example as a collector for his contemporaries. 28 GRI, Duveen Brothers records, 1925–1940, box 497, reel 352, 5.12.1933. 29 Joseph Duveen cited in Hook, Rogues Gallery, 86. 30 For the role of Joseph Duveen in the National Gallery, see Barbara Pezzini, ‘Making a Market for Art: Agnew’s and the National Gallery, 1855–1928’ (PhD disseration, University of Manchester, 2017), 240–53. For the relationship between Duveen and the British Museum, see Elizabeth Kehoe, ‘Working Hard at Giving it Away: Lord Duveen, the British Museum and the Elgin Marbles’, Historical Research 77, no. 198 (2004): 503–19. 31 For the importance to Joseph Duveen of being involved in the formation of the State Art Collection of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, see Subotić, ‘Prince Paul’, 137–55, and Todorović, Catalogue of the State Art Collection, Volume I: European Art, 14–41. 32 GRI, Duveen Brothers records, 1925–1940, box 497, reel 352. 15.03.1932. 33 For more information, see NARA Washington Archive of Monuments Fine Arts and Archives division. Also Jelena Todorović, ‘The Image and Its Histories: A Curious History of Rembrandt’s Painting’, in Regimes of Invisibility in Contemporary Art, Theory and Culture: Image, Racialization, History, ed. Marina Gržinić, Aneta Stojnić and Miško Šuvaković (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 159–68. 34 André Félibien, Entretiens sur les vies et les ouvrages des plus excellents peintres anciens et modernes (Paris: Pierre Le Petit, 1666). 35 GRI, Julius Böhler archive, invoice 179/29, 14.2.1931. 36 For more information on this painting, see Todorović, Catalogue of the State Art Collection: Volume I: European Art, 14–41. 37 The Benson Collection was bought in London in 1927 for £500,000. For more information, see GRI, Duveen Brothers records, 1925–1940, box 351, reel 207. 38 The Abduction of Europa is now attributed to Veronese’s son and assistant, Carlo Caliari. 39 While the State Art Collection survived the calamities of the Second World War almost intact, the personal collection of Prince Paul had already been dispersed during his lifetime. The most important works, notably Mantegna’s Saint Jerome, he had sold prior to the German ocupation hoping to secure a better future for his children, while others, including El Greco’s Laocoon, he sold during his exile (this work is now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington). The remaining paintings remain in the possession of his descendants.

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Negotiating Old Masters for the Melbourne National Gallery Monique Webber

An Ambitious Plan The Australian city of Melbourne was less than twenty years old in the mid-nineteenth century. Given its youth, this forced British settlement on Kulin Nation lands could have been forgiven for taking its European-inspired development slowly.1 And yet, in the same decade that the long-established cities of Rome and London founded the Lateran Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, Melbourne made its aspirations for cultural parity with the great European cities part of its nascent physical environment. On just one day in 1853, the city founded both a university and an impressive library and museum complex.2 It was in this spirit that the Melbourne Board of Design, established in 1861 to promote public art throughout the city, argued for ‘the powerful engine’ of ‘works of art of a high character’.3 In the same year, the museum’s growing art collections necessitated founding a dedicated national gallery on the same site.4 Within and without its walls, ‘a high character’ was synonymous with ‘European’.5 The first published introduction to the gallery’s collections explains that its Classical and Old Master casts and copies ‘furnis[h] means of enlightened gratification and material instruction . . . for the benefit of the community’ (Fig. 13.1).6 Originals of these works of art would, of course, have been appreciated.7 But in nineteenth-century Melbourne they were both largely inaccessible and, to an extent, deemed unnecessary. In the eyes of its patrons and visitors, Melbourne’s collection of copies was not an assemblage of pale imitations. Casts and copies were already prevalent across Europe. In Australia, these objects acquired an additional layer of meaning. Their presence was a visual stimulus creating an emotional connection to a distant continent that many colonists regarded as ‘home’.8 This ethnocentric imagery ensured the colonial domination already present in the newly imposed urban landscape was equally preeminent in the minds of its inhabitants. And they, in turn, were excluded or included, depending on their own origins.9 Copies, therefore, ‘possess[ed] an enduring worth much exceeding their mere monetary value’ – or, indeed, their non-original status.10 This was fortunate. A nineteenth-century ‘gold rush’ may have brought unimagined wealth to Melbourne but this fledgling city, in a distant corner of the British Empire, 225

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Fig. 13.1 Frederick Grosse and Oswald Rose Campbell, The Sculpture Gallery, Melbourne, 1866. Wood engraving from The Australian News for Home Readers, 27 July 1866. State Library of Victoria, Melbourne.

was not in any position to compete in the international Old Master market. That is, not until the early twentieth century. On his death in 1904, the businessman and philanthropist Alfred Felton (1831– 1904) left half the income of his extensive £383,163 estate for the purchase of works of art for Melbourne’s Gallery through the Felton Bequest.11 Melbourne did not just have deep pockets. With Felton stipulating only that works should be ‘calculated to raise or improve public taste’, the Felton Bequest Committee, the Trustees of the Gallery with whom they consulted, and the London Adviser who represented them in the market, also enjoyed considerable liberty in its acquisitions.12 A proviso appeared in 1908, however, when the Felton Bequest Committee made it clear to its advisers that ‘the acquisition of contemporary work is not the main object of the collection’.13 Nevertheless, a conflation of a limited art market, a prevailing faith in copies, and fashion for the modern kept Melbourne’s Old Masters decidedly Victorian in taste and era.14 An impressively detailed 1869 newspaper report on the Gallery’s ‘abundant reminiscences of some of the highest and the most striking forms of art’ reveals a predominance of Italian Renaissance and early modern European copies.15 Notably, the critic praised the ‘well-known’ works by artists including Raphael and Andrea del Sarto less for their content, and more for accurately recreating the European viewing experience.16 A copy of Murillo’s Immaculate Conception may have been ‘glorious’,17 but the fact that the reader ‘may have already seen [it] in the Louvre’ was more exciting.18 When Frank Rinder (1863–1937) became Felton Bequest Adviser on 18 November 1918, Melbourne’s duplication of ‘familiar faces and forms’ on the Gallery’s walls came to an end.19 For the foreseeable future, Rinder – a Scottish-born writer and collector with a preference for Old Masters and who had never set foot in Australia – would be largely responsible for one of Australia’s few public art collections.20 Rinder accepted this often

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‘thankless task’ for one main reason.21 Writing in 1919 to his friend, and Director of the Tate Gallery, Charles Aitken (1869–1936), Rinder contextualized his appointment within a war that had killed or injured more than half of the 416,819 Australians who enlisted.22 Australia may have styled itself as a jewel of the British Empire, but ‘home’ was not going to relinquish its ‘treasures’ until the colony proved itself worthy of their possession.23 ‘Now,’ Rinder wrote, ‘I feel that Australia has earned the right to a share of such art treasures as are available.’24 Belief that Melbourne had earned its role in the international art market with the close of the First World War was not particular to Rinder.25 Its realization would not be so easy. The ‘notorious old scandal’ of selling second-rate works to the colonies was continuing.26 In 1919, a collections policy emphasizing the Old Masters, and spearheaded by someone unlikely to be duped by unscrupulous dealers, seemed the ideal pathway to building a collection worthy of Melbourne and its aspirations. Rinder’s tenure as Felton Bequest Adviser introduced the first concentrated policy of Old Master acquisitions to Melbourne’s Gallery. In the space of only a few years, Rinder transformed the Gallery from an institution with ‘a mania for copies’ of the Old Masters into a space hung with genuine examples of the work of Anthony van Dyck, Titian, Hans Memling, and Tintoretto.27 In Europe and America, the artistic value of these works was clear. They were testimony to a shared heritage irrespective of geographic or temporal distances.28 In early twentieth century Australia, however, this dialogue was changing. As Melbourne sought to define itself through art, its own changing (and largely self-styled) identity as an up-and-coming world player shifted perspectives. Old Master paintings were judged more harshly than was expected. When his first purchases arrived in Melbourne, Rinder was vilified in the public press and in his own institution as a ‘fool’ who had misspent Australia’s major philanthropic bequest on second-rate work.29 These criticisms amounted to little more than a smear campaign that, in persisting throughout the 1920s, ended with Rinder’s resignation in 1928.30 And with his departure, the impact of the Old Master market in Melbourne – and, indeed, in Australia – changed dramatically. Leonard Cox and John Poynter have closely followed Rinder’s history; while Ann Galbally, Ursula Hoff and Alison Inglis have charted the early development of Melbourne’s collections.31 Rinder’s acquisitions for Melbourne, however, have not received extensive scholarship. Focusing specifically on key Old Master acquisitions for the Gallery within the international art market and its public reception, this chapter offers a new perspective on a tragic figure and his influence on Australian art collections in the global context.

Why Old Masters? When Rinder joined Melbourne’s Gallery, the institution was little more than fifty years into its own history. In this time, the Melbourne Gallery had made its reputation predominately on a collection of Classical and Old Master copies.32 This was not unusual in contemporaneous European collections.33 Casts and copies literally replicated the masterpieces of a shared heritage amongst its cognoscenti in a selfperpetuating cycle of artistic recognition and cultural definition.34 For their possessors,

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these collections were physical proof of acceptance into the complex intersection of privilege, taste and education that supported the upper echelons of European society.35 In colonial countries, these ideals assumed a new level of urgency. With Old Master copies already signifying more than the sum of their parts, possessing – and even the physical act of looking at – facsimiles created not merely an exclusive cultural perspective. It was also a tangible connection to a ‘home’ that was often painfully distant for those regarding Melbourne as an extension of the British Empire.36 As the 1920s drew closer and Melbourne changed, the symbolic weight of copies began to diminish. George Hyde Pownall’s pendant paintings Collins Street and Bourke Street show Melbourne’s wide boulevards traversed by well-dressed dandies and proudly punctuated by electricity poles.37 Such art announced the city’s arrival in the modern era. From the perspective of Australia’s ruling classes England – and by extension, Europe – was still ‘home’. But a rising number of these British subjects were now being born in Australia.38 As it developed its own identity within the Commonwealth, Australia increasingly positioned itself as a worthy extension of the British Empire.39 It was emphatically not a dejected outpost receiving only art ‘good enough for the colonies’.40 Against this accelerating self-confidence, copies of Old Masters began to lose their aura of hallowed tradition. No longer the nineteenth-century gateways to a rarefied culture, copies now recalled a distant reality that was made all the more remote by its false presence.41 The conviction that Australian artists needed to study the best of European art to create their own, and that exposure to high culture would morally improve Melbourne, remained persistent: Old Masters remained unquestionably relevant.42 However, there was an incipient feeling that Melbourne deserved the real thing, not least from the perspective of the new Felton Bequest Adviser.43 Rinder set the wheels in motion for an Old Masters collection policy before he even left London for Melbourne. Writing to the Felton Bequest Committee in 1919, Rinder articulated the ideas he would express privately to Aitken later in the year.44 He explained that a competitive market with ever-increasing prices would not grant even the expansive Felton Bequest a number of major works.45 Nonetheless, Melbourne could and should begin a collection of Old Masters.46 Rinder was confident that, with patience, he could secure works from a variety of European schools.47 These hopes were well received. Rinder’s objectives reflected well-established English collecting paradigms. These regarded Old Masters as the pinnacle of connoisseursip, and often emphasized the more attractive schools.48 The Felton Bequest Committee had ‘the public taste’ as its official aspiration.49 As the embodiment of these ideals, Old Masters were – even as copies – a natural choice for Melbourne. The next step was acquiring them. Upon his arrival in Melbourne, Rinder met with the Felton Bequest Committee and the Trustees of the National Gallery, and then drew up a revised Schedule.50 This combined wish list and shopping list of approved artists defined the Adviser’s actions back in London. The 1910 Schedule focused on paintings from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the division of artists by nationality into the three categories of ‘English’, ‘French’ or ‘Various’.51 It reveals the same ethnocentric aspirations towards the European canon shown in the Gallery’s copies, tempered perhaps by awareness of a difficult market for originals.52 To this, Rinder added Old Masters including Canaletto, Van Eyck and Vermeer.53

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His bold chronological and geographical extension of Melbourne’s potential collections was, however, still bound by the financial terms of the Schedule. Anything on the list, and priced at less than 900 guineas (£945), was granted immediate purchase.54 Anything else required permission from the Felton Bequest Committee via cable.55 With Rinder’s first purchases averaging £500 each, this was a moderately realistic response to the market.56 But it did not allow easy purchase of major works such as a ‘Jan van Eyck’, secured for £31,500 from the Weld-Blundell family whose Merseyside residence provided the work with its name, The Ince Hall Madonna (Fig.  13.2).57 This diminutive painting arrived in Melbourne only after lengthy dialogue.58 Nonetheless, Old Masters were a shared priority for Rinder, the Felton Bequest Committee and the Trustees of the National Gallery. Representing 51 out of a total of 199 approved artists, these works were the second largest group in a Schedule that remained tentatively at the border of the modern era.59 Rinder did not stop at this. He also requested full authority to purchase any ‘highly desirable’ Old Masters as soon as they appeared on the market.60 Rinder’s anxiety around missing the works, and the surprising acquiescence of the Felton Bequest Committee, underscores a joint belief that these physical links to European heritage would be instrumental in Melbourne’s development.61 In a continuing search for identity, ideals that were previously ascribed

Fig. 13.2 Flemish, Virgin and Child, mid-fifteenth century. Oil on wood, 26.3 x 19.4 cm. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. National Gallery of Victoria/Wikimedia.

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to copies were essentially redirected to the original. It was in this perpetuated – and ever increasing – model that the problems started.

‘Good enough for the Colonies’: Art in the Wrong Environment? Dutch masters were central to Rinder’s aims from the outset of his tenure as Adviser. These works, he suggested in his first letter to the Felton Bequest Committee, were available and would be as popular in Melbourne as they were in London.62 A letter of the following year suggests that both Rinder – perhaps influenced by seeing Melbourne’s self-identification as an extension of ‘home’ first-hand – and the Felton Bequest Committee closely equated Melbourne and European audiences.63 Nevertheless, Rinder reiterated that even Felton Bequest money could not acquire the ‘supreme’ Dutch works that Melbourne desired.64 It would have to shift focus to less famous works by the ‘supreme masters’, or works of equal value by lesser-known followers.65 For Rinder quality, and to a lesser extent provenance, outweighed impact or notoriety.66 And with Gerritt Berckheyde’s Town Hall, Amsterdam, acquired from the prominent London restorer and dealer A. H. Buttery for £500 in February 1920, Rinder began realizing his hopes for Melbourne.67 Its diminutive size notwithstanding, Town Hall sings with the clear light of a Dutch morning. A bustling city scene occupies the foreground. The criss-cross of hawkers, pedestrians and carriages gives life to the formal city square. Acquisition of a painting in London, and solely for Melbourne, was celebrated in newspapers across a country proud to soon possess a Dutch master.68 The inspirational role played by the Old Masters was not geographically limited. Even people who would not see the Berckheyde could recognize a source of national pride in its presence in Australia. The source – or even the creation – of this pride offers an insight into how Australia viewed the Old Master market. With the brief cable from London as their only information, and few comparable works in local collections, the press focused on artist over subject.69 To the essential details of Rinder’s cable, Melbourne’s broadsheet The Age added that the elder Berckheyde brother had been a pupil of Jacob de Wit, and Melbourne’s Berckheyde a pupil of his brother.70 In one of the first indications of dissonance between the buyer and his audience, the public preferred the artist’s celebrity over his actual work. Both Rinder and Melbourne were blissfully unaware of this disjunction until later in the year. When Rinder’s first purchases for Melbourne arrived in mid-1920, the Berckheyde had been built up far beyond its physical reality. Like the copies that Rinder hoped to replace, he intended Town Hall to be physical proof that Melbourne could prove equal in taste to the audiences of Europe. When the work was unveiled, however, reality did not live up to the ideal. The first (and most vicious) comment on the Berckheyde does not even mention the painting’s subtle tonality and clear colours.71 In the assessment of a still unknown ‘N. L.’, Town Hall is just an overpriced ‘architectural Amsterdam painting’.72 As if rebutting Rinder’s private correspondence with the Felton Bequest Committee valuing lesser works by great masters, N. L. argues that ‘great names [may

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be] attached to some of the pictures’ purchased by Rinder, ‘but the work is seldom worthy of the name’.73 The issue was not that Melbourne had received an unknown work by a known artist. The problem lay in the work appearing as a poor representation of his oeuvre. Rinder was clearly in step with his audience when setting out to purchase. What remains to be determined is why opinions diverged before the physical object. The attack against Rinder’s Berckheyde was not uninformed. N. L.’s assessment of Edward-Burne Jones and ‘Canaletto’ works also purchased under Rinder demonstrates that the critic was well versed in European art and its market – if somewhat vituperative in getting this across to the reader.74 Assessment of the Berckheyde as possessing ‘little but antiquarian interest’ therefore questions why this critic – and the newspaper editors who published him – felt the work’s physical reality diminished the status it ought to have proved.75 The answer may lie in the way that the painting was displayed. Town Hall was likely hung in the Stawell Gallery within Melbourne’s Gallery (Fig. 13.3).76 Like the adjacent spaces, the rectangular Stawell Gallery separated the viewer from top-lit paintings by a railing, while inviting them to sit beneath the central skylights.77 It is unsurprising that visitors complained of not being able to see the displays.78 Artist Arthur Streeton added in 1920 (when the Berckheyde was being shown) that this environment was not only ‘hopeless!’, but also detrimental to the works’ – and by extension, the Felton Bequest Committee’s – reputation.79 The ‘splendid purchase’ of J. M. W. Turner’s Walton Bridges appeared to full advantage in the well-lit London studio where Streeton had happened to see it twelve years earlier.80 But in Melbourne, the painting was transformed from a glowing scene to ‘almost the usual old brown landscape [that was] certainly not worth the money’.81 Given N. L.’s dismissal of Town Hall as merely ‘architectural’, it seems Berckheyde’s delicate tonality fared no better.82 And yet, Dutch Masters were popular in London, where the work was purchased and a similar work was in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and an almost identical work had

Fig. 13.3 Postcard of The National Gallery of Victoria, The Stawell Gallery, c. 1910. State Library of Victoria, Melbourne.

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been proudly in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum since 1828.83 The impact of environment on interpretation reveals that Old Master transactions for distant audiences did not end at the saleroom. The buyer’s selection was only the first, and perhaps even the least important, decision in a series of judgements that would test the works against the ideals they were meant to embody. And, in the case of Town Hall, Amsterdam, the painting sadly failed.

Reconnecting the Colonies to ‘Home’ Binarism between European and Australian receptions of Berckheyde demonstrates that as Old Masters sought new homes, reliance on contextual interpretation potentially diminished their meaning. The Berckheyde had shown that even a high-quality Old Master was not adequate to Melbourne’s purposes. In 1921, the Gallery possessed 20,097 objects.84 Fundamentally, the Berckheyde was too small and too delicate to be one of the centrepieces of Melbourne’s goal ‘nucleus of the collection’.85 Consequently, the Felton Bequest Committee decided it was willing to hold off purchasing further pictures until a suitable one came onto the market.86 They, and the Australian public, were right in thinking that the Bequest funds were generous, that Melbourne’s developing collection was internationally supported and that its Adviser was well connected. But cabling to Melbourne before major purchases, and considering an often hostile and unpredictable audience, also caused Rinder to miss – or even avoid – major works that the international market offered to Melbourne.87 These included works by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt and Vermeer, not least the latter’s Girl with the Red Hat.88 Fearing that the work would prove insufficiently impressive in the Australian context, Melbourne advised an equally tentative Rinder not to proceed with the sale.89 Andrew W. Mellon purchased the work in 1925 from M. Knoedler & Co.90 Ironically, the following year, the Sydney Sunday Times wrote admiringly of the ‘wonderful Vermeers and Rembrandts’ that Australians could unfortunately see only in Europe.91 And so, works that may have placated a community eager for superstar artists instead found their way into other countries’ collections. Essentially, remoteness from the market created a false impression in Australia of what could be purchased, the ease with which this could be achieved, and, increasingly, anxiety about how European art would translate in an Australian context. In placing purchased Old Masters at the centre of this dialogue, the Felton Bequest Committee unknowingly widened the distance between Australia and Europe that these objects were intended to bridge. In 1922, however, Rinder attempted to reconcile these differences. A series of ‘noteworthy acquisitions’ reached Melbourne in 1922.92 The consignment included Anthony van Dyck’s Rachel de Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton (Fig. 13.4). At more than two metres tall, this monumental portrait is a triumph of texture and light. In 1922, it had recently been affirmed as the first of Van Dyck’s countess portraits.93 Melbourne was suitably impressed.94 So, too, was the rest of the country, which envied Melbourne’s ‘luck’.95 At last, Australia owned ‘the best work of the best masters’.96 There was more to come. Rinder’s friend, the National Gallery Director Charles Holmes (1868–1936), not only showed the Van Dyck in London and publicly thanked

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Fig. 13.4 Anthony van Dyck, Rachel de Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton, c. 1640. Oil on canvas and wood, 222.4 × 131.6 cm. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. National Gallery of Victoria/Wikimedia.

Melbourne for its generosity,97 but he also published a glowing recommendation of the painting’s quality, and of Melbourne’s taste in accepting it into their collection, in The Burlington Magazine.98 For such an aspirational collection as Melbourne’s, the circumstances and result of Rinder’s purchase brought equality with the connoisseurs of Europe. Like the Berckheyde, the Van Dyck was expensive: £15,000, which amounted to thirty times an average annual professional wage, as well as thirty times the price of the Berckheyde.99 These comparisons did not escape public notice.100 But there were two fundamental differences between the Van Dyck and Rinder’s purchase of two years earlier. External sanction and pure aesthetic drama awarded the Van Dyck immediate success where the Berckheyde had failed. The different fate of these works both reiterates the precarious status of Old Masters in a new context and demonstrates the fundamental subjectivity of an international market that accepts one work over another. Rinder’s purchase also offers an insight into Old Masters between Australia and Europe from the other side of the cultural divide. If transferring Old Masters to Australia could enhance the latter’s colonial identity, it follows that removal of the same works would have an adverse effect on their home countries. This was certainly the idea underlying the sale and purchase of Rinder’s Van

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Dyck. The work had been in the collection of Lord Lucas, whose death in 1916 prompted Lady Lucas to sell.101 London’s National Gallery, which, by 1922, had displayed the painting on loan for thirteen years, rejected it at £24,570 when purchasing another work from the Lucas Collection.102 Lady Lucas promptly offered Rachel de Ruvigny privately to Rinder at a drastically reduced price of £15,000.103 With Vermeer paintings that Rinder judged ‘not a typically fine’ example soon selling for £20,000, and Joseph Duveen anxious to secure a Van Dyck for America, gaining a high price for Rachel de Ruvigny on the open market was not unlikely.104 This was exactly what Lady Lucas – and, indeed, much of the British art world – wanted to avoid.105 Writing on the sale, Holmes reflected that sales to foreign collections ‘ceases to be spoliation if the transfer involved is merely a transfer from the centre of the British Empire’ to its colonies and dominions.106 They, in turn, would ‘be enormously benefited’ by the works.107 To cement this alliance, Holmes ensured that the Van Dyck – like other Old Masters Rinder later purchased – were shown in the National Gallery in London.108 The works could be appreciated by European audiences before being effectively lost to their communities. In the purchase of Rinder’s Van Dyck, the market is both the cause and the cure of a social issue, within which gallery spaces are made the point of transition between the old and the new world. This cast Rachel de Ruvigny as a shared possession. To an audience eager for sociopolitical inclusion, the painting linked Australia to its desired origins while forming a foundation for future growth, just as Felton had intended.

Conclusion Town Hall and Rachel de Ruvigny were amongst Rinder’s first major Old Master purchases for Melbourne. The vagaries of their reception epitomize the vicissitudes of negotiation between buyer, audience and institution in the interwar art market. Examination of these works uncovers both the limitations and the breadth of this network. Increasing internationalization notwithstanding, location continued inherently to dictate the market. And so, as Melbourne articulated its developing identity through acquisitions, the role of Old Masters in Australia changed with each purchase. Each of the Old Masters that Rinder purchased was, like the Berckheyde and the Van Dyck, lauded internationally as a worthy addition to any collection.109 Translocated to a new context, in which former reference points were lost and new expectations were applied, Rinder’s Old Masters underwent a dramatic change in meaning. The importance of the final location did not, however, undermine the market’s power – or that of the buyers. Rinder had been Australia’s principal connection to the European art scene. When ongoing Australian criticism essentially forced his resignation, Australian collections lost their principal tie to the international market. Melbourne’s new buyers, in particular, were ignored and mistrusted in a London baffled by the treatment that Rinder had received in his adopted country.110 Melbourne’s Old Master collection briefly stalled as a result.111 Although it recovered, the lasting impact of Rinder’s tenure reveals the decisive role of individual buyers in bridging – or creating – the cultural and geographical divide of the global interwar market.

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Notes 1

2

3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

This chapter examines the post-settlement history of Melbourne. In this context, the term ‘Melbourne’ signifies colonial understanding of the land post-1839, when the name was imposed on Indigenous land. The term ‘European’ is also used to distinguish the imported settler model. The author acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which they live and work; and pays respect to their Elders past, present and to the future. The author recognizes tens of thousands of years of Indigenous ownership and the tragedy of these communities’ forced separation from their land; and recognizes the equal significance of a pre-existing and ongoing Indigenous culture even if early Melbourne society did not. This chapter was written during tenure as the 2017–18 State Library of Victoria La Trobe Society Fellow and as an Honorary Fellow for the University of Melbourne. Carolyn Rasmussen, ‘A Museum for the People’, in A Museum for the People: A History of Museum Victoria and Its Predecessor Institutions, 1854–2000, ed. Carolyn Rasmussen (Melbourne: Scribe Publications, 2001), 1. ‘The Burke and Wills Monument’, The Age, 22 April 1865, 6. Kathleen M. Fennessy, ‘For “Love of Art”: The Museum of Art and Picture Gallery at the Melbourne Public Library 1860–70’, La Trobe Journal 75 (2009): 5–8; Rasmussen, A Museum, 1. It is now the National Gallery of Victoria. ‘The Burke and Wills’, 6. Redmond Barry, Catalogue of the Casts of Statues, Busts, and Bas-Reliefs in the Museum of Art at the Melbourne Public Library (Melbourne: John Ferres, 1865), xxiii. ‘Art Treasures Exhibition’, Argus, 30 March 1869, 5. Kristin Otto, Capital: Melbourne When It was the Capital City of Australia, 1901–27 (Melbourne: State Library of Victoria, 2009), 147. See John Rennie Short, ‘Representing Country in the Creative Postcolonial City’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 102, no. 1 (2012): 142–7. Barry, Catalogue, xxiii. Also ‘The Sculpture Room at the Public Library’, The Illustrated Melbourne Post, 27 July 1866, 305. Basil Burdett, The Felton Bequest: An Historical Record, 1904–1933 (Melbourne: Felton Bequests Committee, 1934), 8. ‘Alfred Felton’s Estate. Annuities and Legacies’, The Age, 5 February 1904, 4. Appointment of an ‘Adviser’ largely followed the ‘agent’ model of the National Gallery in London; see Chapter 4 by Susanna Avery-Quash in this volume. Burdett, The Felton Bequest, 13. This preference follows the contemporaneous fashion for Old Masters in the Anglophone world. See Chapters 6 and 11 by Barbara Pezzini and Inge Reist, respectively, in this volume. Burdett, The Felton Bequest, 13–14. ‘Art Treasures Exhibition’, 5. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ann Galbally, ‘ “For the Instruction and Amusement of the Inhabitants”: The Development of Public Museums, Libraries and Art Galleries in Colonial Australia’, in The First Collections: The Public Library and the National Gallery of Victoria in the 1850s and 1860s, ed. Ann Galbally and Alison Inglis (Melbourne: University of Melbourne Museum of Art, 1992), 11–29; Ursula Hoff, The Felton Bequest (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1983), 72.

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21 William More Adey, ‘The Felton Bequest Committee and the Trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria’, The Burlington Magazine 34 (1919): 79. 22 Frank Rinder, ‘Frank Rinder to Charles Aitken, 5 November 1919’, quoted in John Poynter, Mr. Felton’s Bequests (Melbourne: Meiegunyah Press, 2008), 327. Unfortunately, the Frank Rinder Papers held by the National Gallery of Victoria are in so fragile a state that they can no longer be viewed. I am grateful to the scholars who have examined Rinder, and I quote his correspondence in their work. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Adey, ‘The Felton Bequest’, 79. 26 Ibid. 27 ‘Art Treasures Exhibition’, 5; and Alison Inglis, ‘ “A Mania for Copies”: Replicas, Reproductions and Copies in Colonial Victoria’, in The First Collections, ed. Galbally and Inglis, 31; Felton Bequest, Estate A Felton – Papers of the Works of Art Fund (Melbourne: Felton Bequest, 1905–27), 78ff. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne: Anthony van Dyck, Rachel de Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton, c. 1640, oil on canvas and wood (inv. no. 1246–3); Titian, A Monk with a Book, c. 1550, oil on canvas (inv. no. 1334–3); Hans Memling, The Man of Sorrows in the Arms of the Virgin, 1475–9, oil and gold leaf of wood panel (inv. no. 1335–3); and Jacopo Tintoretto, Doge Pietro Loredano, 1567–70, oil on canvas (3677–3). 28 Charles Holmes, ‘The Latest Purchase for Melbourne’, The Burlington Magazine 40 (1922): 284. 29 Poynter, Mr. Felton’s Bequests, 343. 30 See Edmund La Touche Armstrong and Robert Douglass Boys, The Book of the Public Library, Museum, and National Gallery of Victoria, 1906–1931 (Melbourne: Trustees of the Public Library, Museum, and National Gallery of Victoria, 1932), 81–2; and Burdett, The Felton Bequest, 23. 31 Leonard Cox, The National Gallery of Victoria, 1861–1968: A Search for a Collection (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1968), 87–113; Poynter, Mr. Felton’s Bequests, 327–67; Galbally, ‘ “For the Instruction” ’, passim; Ursula Hoff, European Paintings Before 1800 in the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1995), passim; and Inglis, ‘A Mania for Copies’, passim. 32 Inglis, ‘A Mania for Copies’, 31. It is worth noting that Melbourne also possessed a fine collection of modern British art and through the British Loan Collection displayed ‘some of the greatest productions of modern British art’ at the 1888 Centennial International Exhibition. Ibid., passim; and Executive Commissioners for the Centennial International Exhibition of 1888, Report of the Executive Commissioners for the Centennial International Exhibition of 1888 (Melbourne: Robt. S. Brain Government Printer, 1891), 7. 33 Inglis, ‘A Mania for Copies’, 31; and ‘The Sculpture Room’, 305. 34 Compare with the broader view governing the Victoria and Albert Museum Cast Courts, in Malcolm Baker, ‘The Reproductive Continuum: Plaster Casts, Paper Mosaics and Photographs as Complementary Modes of Reproduction in the Nineteenth-Century Museum’, in Plaster Casts: Making Collecting and Displaying from Classical Antiquity to the Present, ed. Rune Frederiksen and Eckart Marchand (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 2010), 487–90. 35 Inglis, ‘A Mania for Copies’, 31; and Holmes, ‘The Latest Purchase’, 284. 36 ‘The Sculpture Room’, 305.

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37 State Library of Victoria, Melbourne: George Hyde Pownall, Collins Street, c. 1912, oil on canvas (inv. no. H33066); and George Hyde Pownall, Bourke Street, c. 1912, oil on canvas (inv. no. H33067). 38 Otto, Capital, 83. 39 ‘N. L.’, ‘Felton Bequest Mistakes’, Argus, 5 June 1920, 6. 40 Ibid. 41 Cox, The National Gallery, 25–6. 42 Burdett, The Felton Bequest, 13. 43 Adey, ‘The Felton Bequest’, 79; ‘Art Treasures Exhibition’, 5; and Rinder, ‘Frank Rinder to Charles Aitken’, 327. 44 Frank Rinder, ‘Frank Rinder to William Armstrong, 2 June 1919’, quoted in Poynter, Mr. Felton’s Bequests, 329; and Rinder, ‘Frank Rinder to Charles Aitken’, 327. 45 Rinder, ‘Frank Rinder to William Armstrong, 2 June 1919’, 329; and Hoff, The Felton Bequest, 15. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 See Till-Holger Borchert, ‘Collecting Early Netherlandish Paintings in Europe and the United States‘, in Early Netherlandish Paintings: Rediscovery, Reception and Research, ed. Bernard Ridderbos, Anne van Buren and Henk van Veen (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005), 203–4; Holger Hoock, ‘ “Struggling Against a Vulgar Prejudice”: Patriotism and the Collecting of British Art at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of British Studies 49, no. 3 (2010): 566, 571–2; and Maureen McCue, ‘Guiding the Nation’s Taste: Nineteenth-Century Periodical and the Construction of the National Gallery in London, 1824–1842’, Yearbook of English Studies 48 (2018): 14, 20. Although officially sanctioned, this approach was not without public criticism. William Hazlitt, Sketches of the Principal Picture Galleries in England (London: Taylor and Hessey, 1824), 2. See McCue, ‘Guiding the Nation’s Taste’, 20. 49 ‘Alfred Felton’s Estate’, 4. 50 Burdett, The Felton Bequest, 15–16; and Poynter, Mr. Felton’s Bequests, 329–33. 51 Charles Bage, Historical Record of the Felton Bequests: From Their Inception to 31st December 1922 (Melbourne: Felton Bequests Committee, 1922), 35–6. This categorization loosely follows the eighteenth-century ‘les trois écoles’ discussed in Chapter 5 by Léa Saint-Raymond in this volume. Interestingly – although likely unintentionally, given the competition between Australia and America for European art – Rinder’s aim of securing examples from the most significant European schools also echoed contemporary American collecting strategies. J. Pierpoint Morgan emphatically sought ‘at least one or two examples of all of the great schools of painting’ to ‘illuminat[e] a European past for Americans’. Paula Rubel and Abraham Rosman, ‘The Collecting Passion in America’, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 126, no. 2 (2001): 315–16. 52 Bage, Historical Record, 35–6; and ‘Art Treasures Exhibition’, 5. 53 Bage, Historical Record, 37. 54 Burdett, The Felton Bequest, 15–16; and Poynter, Mr. Felton’s Bequests, 329–33. 55 Ibid. 56 Felton Bequest, Estate A Felton, 82. 57 Flemish School, Virgin and Child, mid-fifteenth century, oil on wood (inv. no. 1275–3), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; ‘Old Master for Melbourne’, Argus, 25 November 1922, 8; ‘Valuable Picture’, The Ballarat Star, 5 January 1923, 5; Carl Villis,

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58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

68

69 70 71 72 73 74

75 76

77 78 79 80 81 82

Old Masters Worldwide ‘The National Gallery of Victoria’s Virgin and Child, by a follower of Jan Van Eyck: A Continuing Reassessment’, Art Journal 52 (2013), n. p. Villis, ‘The National Gallery’, n.p. Poynter, Mr. Felton’s Bequests, 331–2. Frank Rinder, ‘Amendments to the Schedule’, quoted in Poynter, Mr. Felton’s Bequests, 331–2, original emphasis. Burdett, The Felton Bequest, 16. Rinder, ‘Frank Rinder to Armstrong, 2 June 1919’, 329. Frank Rinder, ‘Frank Rinder to Armstrong, for Trustees, 30 July 1920’, quoted in Poynter, Mr. Felton’s Bequests, 339–40. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Felton Bequest, Estate A Felton, 82. Gerritt Berckheyde, Town Hall, Amsterdam, 1690, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (inv. no. 1050–3). For A. H. Buttery’s activity, see Walter A. Liedtke, Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Volumes 1–2 (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007), 274; and Federico Zeri and Elizabeth E. Gardner, Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, North Italian School (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986), 32. ‘Pictures for Melbourne’, The Brisbane Courier, 23 February 1920, 7; ‘Pictures for Melbourne Gallery’, The Age, 23 February 1920, 7; ‘Melbourne Art Gallery’, The Mercury, 23 February 1920, 5; ‘Pictures for Melbourne’, The Register, 23 February 1920, 9; ‘Art Purchases’, Daily Telegraph, 23 February 1920, 3; ‘Pictures for Australia’, Kalgoorlie Miner, 23 February 1920, 5; and ‘British News’, The West Australian, 24 February 1920, 4. Hoff, European Paintings, 91, 93, 313. ‘Pictures for Melbourne Gallery’, 7. N. L., ‘Felton Bequest’, 6. Ibid. Ibid.; and Rinder, ‘Frank Rinder to Armstrong, for Trustees, 30 July 1920’, 339–40. N. L., ‘Felton Bequest’, 6. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne: Edward Burne-Jones, The Garden of Pan, 1886–7, oil on canvas (inv. no. 961–3); Bernardo Bellotto, Grand Canal Looking North-East to the Rialto Bridge, c. 1738, oil on canvas (inv. no. 965–3); and Bernardo Bellotto, Ruins of the Forum, Rome, c. 1743, oil on canvas (inv. no. 964–3). N. L., ‘Felton Bequest’, 6. Sydney Cockerell, ‘Report on the National Gallery of Victoria, with Suggestions for Its Rearrangement’, in Cox, The National Gallery, 411–16. Other Old Masters, such as the Van Dyck, are known to have been placed here. ‘£15,000 for a van Dyck’, Argus, 7 August 1922, 6. The Stawell Gallery, National Gallery, Melbourne, postcard, Melbourne: State Library of Victoria (inv. no. H25322). Arthur Streeton, ‘National Art Collections’, Argus, 21 August 1920, 6. Ibid. J. M. W. Turner, Walton Bridges. c. 1806, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (inv. no. 918–3); and ‘National Art Collections’, Argus. ‘National Art Collections’, Argus. N. L., ‘Felton Bequest’, 6.

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84 85 86 87 88

89

90 91 92 93 94

95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102

103 104 105 106 107 108

109 110 111

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Gerritt Berckheyde, The Market Place and Town Hall, Haarlem, c. 1691, oil on oak, National Gallery, London (inv. no. L1120); and Gerritt Berckheyde, The Town Hall on Dam Square, Amsterdam, 1672, oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. SK-A–34). Also Hoff, European Paintings, 14. A. M. Laughton, Victorian Year-Book, 1921–1922 (Melbourne: Albert J. Mullett, 1922), 329. Felton Bequest Committee, ‘Letter from Library President and Felton Bequest Committee to Frank Rinder, 5 October 1921’, quoted in Bage, Historical Record, 38. Ibid. Poynter, Mr. Felton’s Bequests, 345–9. Ibid.; and correspondence between Rinder and the Felton Bequest Committee, quoted in Poynter, Mr. Felton’s Bequests, 345–9. Johannes Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, c. 1665–6, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington (inv. no. 1937.1.53). Frank Rinder, ‘Frank Rinder to Armstrong, 8 January 1924’, quoted in Poynter, Mr. Felton’s Bequests, 345; and Ella S. Siple, ‘Recent Acquisitions by American Collectors: Supplement’, The Burlington Magazine 51 (1927): 303. Ibid. ‘Australians Abroad’, The Sunday Times, 26 September 1926, 22. Armstrong and Douglass Boys, The Book, 50. Hoff, European Paintings, 13. See ‘The Studio’, The Australasian, 8 April 1922, 36; ‘The Felton Bequest’, The Age, 8 May 1922, 7; ‘A van Dyck for Melbourne’, Weekly Times, 13 May 1922, 55; ‘London Art Notes’, The Age, 17 June 1922, 21; and ibid., ‘£15,000 for a van Dyck’, 6. ‘Melbourne’s Luck’, The Sunday Times, 7 May 1922, 1. Burdett, The Felton Bequest, 13. ‘The Felton Bequest’, 7; Holmes, ‘The Latest Purchase’, 283–4. Holmes, ‘The Latest Purchase’, 283–4. Laughton, Victorian Year-Book, 344. ‘£15,000 for a van Dyck’, 6. Jaynie Anderson and Carl Villis, ‘Anthony van Dyck‘s Portrait of Rachel De Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton’, The Burlington Magazine 147 (2005): 667. Ibid.; and Charles Holmes, ‘Charles Holmes to Frank Rinder, September 1923’, quoted in Anderson and Villis, ‘Anthony van Dyck’s Portrait’, 667. The work was: Style of Anthony Van Dyck, Portraits of Two Young Englishmen, c. 1635–40, oil on canvas, National Gallery, London (NG3605). Anderson and Villis, ‘Anthony van Dyck’s Portrait’, 667. ‘Frank Rinder to Armstrong, 8 January 1924’, 345; Poynter, Mr. Felton’s Bequests, 345; Anderson and Villis, ‘Anthony van Dyck’s Portrait’, 667. Anderson and Villis, ‘Anthony van Dyck’s Portrait’, 667; Holmes, ‘The Latest Purchase’, 283–84; and ‘London Art Notes’, 21. Holmes, ‘The Latest Purchase’, 284. Ibid. C. H. Collins Baker, ‘Letter to the Chairman, the Trustees of the Felton Bequest, Melbourne Art Gallery, Melbourne, 25 January 1926’, quoted in Burdett, The Felton Bequest, 22–3. Poynter, Mr. Felton’s Bequests, 318. Ibid. Ibid., 375.

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The Distant Old Masters of South Africa Jillian Carman

Old Masters in South Africa are synonymous with seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings to the exclusion of other nationalities and periods. Such pictures share the same timeframe as the first Dutch colonizers of the Cape in 1652, therefore these settlers and their descendants, the Boers or Afrikaners, would surely have been aware of and related to such art, would have collected and treasured it, and would (or at least should) have wanted to preserve it in museums. Such was the narrative peddled in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century1 and later developed by Dutch descendants, the Afrikaner nationalists. The reality was different. This chapter aims to disentangle the facts from fiction, to determine if there existed a long-standing culture of Old Master collecting by Dutch descendants, and to find out why the first collection of Dutch Old Masters was put together by an Anglo-Irish art dealer and donated to the South African nation in 1914 by a British citizen, and not by a Dutch descendant.

Old Masters: Myths and Realities Jan Van Riebeeck (1619–77) landed at the Cape of Good Hope in early April 1652 to establish a refreshment station for Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde OostIndische Compagnie, VOC) ships calling here between the Netherlands and the East.2 His posting to what was little more than an informal settlement was a kind of penance, a chance to restore his reputation, as he had previously been dismissed by the VOC for questionable trade dealings in the early 1640s.3 With time, however, and particularly with the rise of Afrikaner nationalism, this stain on his character was forgotten. After the victory of the National Party in the 1948 general election,4 and in the run-up to the Van Riebeeck tercentenary celebrations in Cape Town in 1952, Van Riebeeck became ‘the central focus of the origins narratives’5 of Afrikaner Nationalism, a heroic pioneer who had brought Christian civilization to the southernmost tip of Africa. Furthermore, he had lived at the time of the Dutch Golden Age, thus justifying a major loan exhibition from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and The Mauritshuis in The Hague of Dutch Old Masters who ‘were alive and working when Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape’.6 In keeping with the association of Van Riebeeck with the Golden Age of Dutch painting is another event that marked the celebrations: the publication of Dirk Bax’s 241

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book on seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings in South African public collections.7 Apart from T. Martin Wood’s earlier catalogue of the Michaelis Collection,8 it was the first and, for many years, the only major publication on such holdings.9 Bax’s pioneering research in the field of early collecting exposes the myths around Old Masters and South Africa, ironically at a time when such myths were being reinforced. Of the approximately 320 paintings that Bax identified in his book, only one was documented as being in the country prior to 1800.10 Bax subsequently identified further minor seventeenth-century Dutch paintings, in what he termed ‘South Africa’s first public collection in the field of art and ethnology,’11 the bequest of Joachim Nikolaus von Dessin (1704–61), who came to the Cape in 1727 in the service of the VOC. Von Dessin left to the Dutch Reformed Church in Cape Town a wide-ranging collection, from which the church selected books (the core collection of the first public library in South Africa, founded 1818) and thirty two paintings. The books were well housed but not the paintings, the fate of most art collections in South Africa into the early twentieth century. They were eventually absorbed into the newly constituted South African National Gallery, Cape Town, in 1895, which, in turn, was accommodated in temporary premises until it received its own building in 1930.12 All but three of the Von Dessin paintings were deaccessioned and sold in the 1940s by the museum’s Director, Edward Roworth (1880–1964).13 Apart from tracking the Von Dessin pictures, Bax also trawled inventories of deceased estates, early travellers’ accounts, advertisements in Cape newspapers, and other documents from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century. He found evidence of many private collections at the Cape prior to 1800, yet hardly anything from them seems to have survived. Bax attributes this to wear and tear and: the transfer of paintings to relatives outside the country after the owner’s death, the moving of paintings together with their owner when the latter left South Africa, and above all the buying up of paintings by dealers, for re-selling in Europe.14

South Africa was regarded as a cultural backwater for most of the nineteenth century, a view disseminated by the English novelist Anthony Trollope in his hugely popular book about his South African travels in 1877, and confirmed by British Prime Minister William Gladstone in 1881, when he described the country as ‘the one great unsolved, perhaps unsolvable, problem of our Colonial system’.15 This view, however, was completely reversed towards the end of the century with the discovery of South Africa’s mineral deposits. Diamonds were already being mined in the 1870s around Kimberley, but the decisive change in South Africa’s (and mine owners’) fortunes came with the discovery of gold in 1886 on the Witwatersrand (Rand) and the founding of Johannesburg. By the late nineteenth century, South African mine owners were among the richest people in the world, dubbed in the 1890s the Randlords.16 The wealthiest in terms of their homes and art collections were Alfred Beit (1853–1906), Otto Beit (1865– 1930), Max Michaelis (1852–1932), Lionel Phillips (1855–1936), Joseph Robinson (1840–1929) and Julius Wernher (1850–1912).17 But, despite South Africa’s exported wealth enabling the creation of magnificent Old Master collections in England, virtually

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none of the Randlords endowed a South African art gallery with these treasures. Michaelis was the exception, as will be seen below.

The Distant Old Masters William Orpen’s portrait of Otto Beit in his study of 1910–13, in the Johannesburg Art Gallery’s collection, encapsulates what mining wealth added to the complex relationships and hidden agendas of Old Masters and South Africa (Fig. 14.1). Certain Randlords gave money to found the Johannesburg Art Gallery, a gallery of modern art, which was considered more appropriate for a young colony than the Old Masters they collected for themselves.18 Conveniently, modern art was relatively cheap. The project was driven by Florence, Lady Phillips (1863–1940), wife of Randlord Lionel Phillips (1855–1936), and the collection of some 130 items opened in Johannesburg in November 1910. It had been put together by the Anglo-Irish art dealer Hugh Lane (1875–1915), who had previously curated a collection of modern art for Dublin (1908) and later curated the Michaelis Collection for Cape Town (1914).19 Beit, a major donor to the Johannesburg Art Gallery, had his portrait painted in his study at 49 Belgrave Square, London, ‘and on the walls may be noted the celebrated series of pictures, illustrating the Story of the Prodigal Son, by Murillo’.20

Fig. 14.1 William Orpen, Otto Beit in His Study at Belgrave Square, 1910–13. Oil on canvas, 81.5 x 76.3 cm. Johannesburg Art Gallery.

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The narratives of Old Masters, the collectors, the Randlords and their social aspirations, the dealers, the source and transfer of wealth, Empire, national identity and allegiance, the distance, the absence – all are suggested in some way in this portrait. As Morna O’Neill writes, it is an example of how ‘works of art could become symbols of a global colonial network’: Beit’s contented gaze at the viewer from his richly appointed study allows the room to become a kind of allegory of empire: the transformation of raw material from South Africa into wealth, status, and privilege in London.21

German-born Otto and his older brother Alfred epitomize the Randlords. Alfred made the family’s fortunes through diamond-dealing in Kimberley and gold-mining in Johannesburg, establishing companies and moving to London in 1889 to manage Wernher, Beit & Co.’s London office.22 He began creating an art collection shortly after arriving in London, advised by Rodolphe Kann (1845–1905), Wilhelm von Bode (1845–1929) and Lane (who later also advised Otto).23 On Alfred’s death in 1906, Otto, who had worked in Kimberley and Johannesburg before settling in Britain in 1898 and acquiring British citizenship, inherited the bulk of Alfred’s art collection and fortune. He retired to his London residence and country estate Tewin Water, Hertfordshire, administering the Beit Trust and expanding and refining the art collection. In the years before the First World War, Beit, like other collectors of the time, bought Old Masters from Agnew’s, Colnaghi, Knoedler and Robert Langton Douglas (1864–1951), dealers who are investigated in greater depth in other chapters in this book.24 Lane encouraged him to buy Frans Hals’ The Lute Player (later attributed to Judith Leyster), for £50,000.25 Around the same time, Beit, the most generous of the donors, gave £10,000 for the Johannesburg Art Gallery collection, which Lane curated for £25,000.26 It is therefore not surprising that, when the issue of housing the Randlord-funded art collection was discussed at a Johannesburg municipal council meeting of 26 April 1911, the labour sector objected to supporting a venture commemorating for prosperity donors who had paid so little for the honour.27 None of the works of art in the background of Beit’s portrait found their way into a South African museum, in fact, no works from the broader Beit Collection did, not even his Dutch Old Masters, with the exception of a seventeenth-century Dutch seascape given to the South African National Gallery in 1953.28 Murillo’s Prodigal Son series of six paintings, of which some are visible in the study, was donated by Beit’s son, Alfred, along with other items from the Beit Collection, to the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin in 1987, prompting Michael Stevenson to observe: Thus almost a century after Alfred Beit had begun his transition to Randlord status with a fortune made in the competitive milieu of Kimberley and Johannesburg, the important works from his collection entered a public gallery, far away from South Africa.29

Dealers in London and Europe may have had a remote connection to South Africa through their Randlord clients, but the sales were negotiated abroad, and the items

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were not so much distant as absent from the country generating the funds. The personal Old Master collections of the wealthiest Randlords did not make their way back to South African art museums. There was no major investment of money in Old Masters in South Africa, no branches of major auction houses or dealerships, no major public art collections. This was the situation until Michaelis donated a collection of seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings in 1914.

Old Masters for South Africa German-born Michaelis generated his wealth from the late 1870s onwards through diamond dealing in Kimberley. He became a partner of Wernher, Beit & Co, moved to London in 1891 as their director dealing in diamonds, and retired in 1901. From 1896 to 1919, he lived at his English country estate Tandridge Court in Oxted, Surrey, and for a short period in Paris, returning to South Africa in 1919 to make his permanent home in Cape Town.30 Of all the Randlords who had private collections of Old Master paintings, he was the only one to invest in such works in South Africa. Michaelis responded to the appeal of the time, mainly from English South Africans, that a collection of Dutch Old Masters was necessary in the interests of good ‘race relations’ between the English and Afrikaner, who had waged a bitter civil war (the Second South African War of 1899–1902) prior to the promulgation of the Union of South Africa in 1910. The Dutch Afrikaners required an art collection with which they could identify, just as the English could identify with the Johannesburg Art Gallery. This was the persuasive argument of Florence Phillips, who was aware that Michaelis desired a baronetcy and suggested that a donation of Dutch Old Masters was a way to procure it (he was knighted in 1924). She had introduced Michaelis to Lane – who was thought of as the ideal curator of such a collection – when she was driving the establishment of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, and seems to have been instrumental in getting General Jan Smuts, a South African statesman, military leader, philosopher and future prime minister of the Union of South Africa, to endorse the project.31 According to T. Martin Wood in his introduction to the catalogue of the collection, the idea for it was, in fact, Lane’s, nurtured when he visited Cape Town in late September 1910, en route to set up the Johannesburg Art Gallery, and encouraged by the attitude of leading members of the Dutch population and Lady Phillips.32 Intriguingly, Wood barely addresses the need of Dutch descendants to find cultural endorsement in a collection of this nature. Instead, he lauded the English patron, whose ‘taste ... for the character of Dutch art indicates a temperamental affinity between the races’, and separates the present-day Dutch-Afrikaner from the time when ‘the prestige of the Dutch East India Company’s fleet was at its height’. The superiority of the English patron over the Dutch and the severing of a link between the Dutch Golden Age and the present are surely not what the likes of Smuts had in mind when they encouraged such a collection. Of particular interest is the insight Wood gives into Lane as a canny art dealer, and why he pursued such a venture. Lane recognized a good chance to capitalize on his picture stock:

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Having conceived the value of such a gift, he went to work in a characteristically practical way, adding to the Dutch and Flemish paintings in his own possession, establishing a nucleus group, in the hope that it would be acquired and presented to South Africa by lovers of the country as the foundation of a national collection.

Lane persuaded Michaelis in November 1912 to buy from him this ready-made collection.33 It was highly praised when its donation was first made public, with the Cape Times of 11 November 1912 announcing that it was: ‘the first time that a British colony will possess Old Masters rivalling in quality European and American collections’. But the praise was muted when the collection went on display at the Grosvenor Gallery, London, in May 1913, prior to its shipment to South Africa. Despite the various attributions having been authenticated by Wilhelm von Bode in Berlin, including Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Lady Holding a Glove, Claude Phillips, a former keeper of the Wallace Collection, rang the alarm bells. He cast doubts on the Rembrandt’s authenticity, and generally found the collection ‘of very unequal merit, and as a whole, by no means qualified to gladden the hearts of serious students of Netherlandish masters’.34 He had praise, however, for Frans Hals’ Portrait of a Woman from the Maurice Kann Collection, purchased by Lane from Duveen Brothers in August 1909 (Fig. 14.2).35 And there were

Fig. 14.2 Frans Hals, Portrait of a Woman, 1644. Oil on canvas, 76 x 63 cm. Michaelis Collection, Cape Town. Iziko Museums of South Africa Art Collections. Photograph by Michael Hall.

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other fine examples, such as Jan Steen’s As the Singing Leads, So the Dancing Follows (The Dancing Dog) (Fig. 14.3) from the Coote Collection. Conveniently for Lane, who had been struggling to sell the work, he was able to offload it from his picture stock.36 Michaelis was hurt and angered about the Rembrandt, suspecting Lane of doubledealing, and Lane felt betrayed by fellow art experts. He withdrew the Rembrandt, subsequently donating it to the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, and replaced it with twenty-two paintings. The final gift consisted of sixty-eight works.37 Whatever Michaelis’ suspicions of ‘being had’, Lane seems not to have made a profit from selling the collection. His ambition, as he wrote to Wilhelm von Bode in Berlin on 8 December 1912, was ‘to create an “old master museum” (my third Public Gallery!)’.38 Michaelis and his wife also possessed a private collection, which they transferred from England to South Africa in 1920.39 Various works of art from it were lent to the Michaelis Collection around this time,40 including Paulus Moreelse’s Portrait of a FourYear-Old Boy with a Club and Ball (Fig. 14.4), acquired by Michaelis from Agnew’s in 1914 and donated to the Michaelis Collection in 1933.41 After Michaelis’ death in 1932, Lady Michaelis donated a further twenty-one paintings to the Michaelis Collection in

Fig. 14.3 Jan Steen, As the Singing Leads, So the Dancing Follows (The Dancing Dog), 1660s. Oil on panel, 89 x 74 cm. Michaelis Collection, Cape Town. Iziko Museums of South Africa Art Collections. Photograph by Michael Hall.

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Fig. 14.4 Paulus Moreelse, Portrait of a Four-Year-Old Boy with a Club and Ball, 1611. Oil on canvas, 117 x 84 cm. Cape Town, Michaelis Collection, MC33/9. Iziko Museums of South Africa Art Collections. Photograph by Michael Hall.

1933,42 fifty-nine paintings of varying nationality and age to the South African National Gallery, Cape Town, and yet another batch of fifty-eight to Pretoria, where they were displayed in the city hall until Pretoria got its own art museum in 1964. Her gift to the South African National Gallery, however, was considered inferior and was initially refused, while the notoriously opinionated artist Gwelo Goodman (1871–1939) viciously attacked it – with some barbs also directed at the original Michaelis Collection – in the Cape Times of 25 February 1933. A number of items both in Cape Town and Pretoria have since been more favourably reappraised, but the majority remain problematic in various ways, including in terms of their attribution, quality and physical condition.43 The original Michaelis Gift of 1914 may not have been considered exceptional, and Michaelis’ private collection – or at least the 117 works from it donated by Lady Michaelis – may have been of uneven quality. It is certainly also true that neither collection equalled the stature of the Beit Collection. Notwithstanding, Michaelis was unique among Randlords in his desire to promote original Old Master paintings in South Africa.

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Old Master Prints for South Africa This essay would be incomplete without mention of another collector, the Dublin-born Howard Pim (1862–1934), an associate of the Randlords, who collected Old Masters in the far more affordable original-print medium. Pim, a Quaker, moved to Johannesburg in the 1890s and set up practice as an accountant.44 He did not share Randlord aspirations for using art as a passport to high society in Britain. He remained in Johannesburg and became involved in local welfare and education and, unusual for his time, defended the rights and cultural interests of black South Africans, struggling for over forty years ‘to ensure that the foundations of our public life should be laid in justice and equity’.45 In late 1906, he lost the audits for the Chamber of Mines and the Eckstein-Rand Mines Ltd groups when he criticized their labour policies. This did not, however, affect his interaction with mine owners in the development of cultural amenities in Johannesburg and he was a staunch supporter of Florence Phillips and her Johannesburg Art Gallery project noted above. Pim presents an unusual case in a discussion of Old Masters in relation to South Africa for three reasons. First, he was personally involved in creating a collection while living in this country. Second, he effectively brought foreign dealers in Old Masters into South Africa by way of his purchasing methods. And third, he bequeathed his collection to a local museum, the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Although Pim undoubtedly met dealers on their home ground,46 mainly in London, his business was conducted almost entirely by post.47 This was not ideal, as Richard Gutekunst complained, ‘because letters are so unsatisfactory and prints pass through one’s hands so quickly’.48 But it was Pim’s chosen method, in accordance (it seems) with a lifestyle that excluded Grand Tours. Pim had a wish list, the dealer then advised what was available, made further suggestions and sent items on approval to Johannesburg. On receipt of the prints, Pim, in turn, made his choices, sometimes sold unwanted items to colleagues (or, occasionally, acted as agent for prints requested by other collectors), returned the balance, if any, and, finally, made payment. This extraordinary system of trust – in safe postal deliveries by sea and land, and via honest buyers and expert dealers – allowed valuable original prints to travel securely between England and South Africa. Rembrandt’s The Three Crosses (Fig. 14.5), for example, was sent by post on approval, with other prints by Rembrandt and a Dürer.49 Although dealers like Richard Gutekunst (London), Gutekunst & Klipstein (Bern) and Colnaghi (London) did not have branches in South Africa, one could say Pim was an informal agent who established a local presence for them in his homeland. The principal dealer with whom Pim worked – in fact, the only one before the First World War50 – was Richard Gutekunst, ‘Dealer in Original Engravings and Woodcuts by the Old Masters, Modern Etchings, Etc.’,51 who was born in Stuttgart in 1870 into a family of art dealers. He worked in London between 1890 and 1893 with his brother Otto at Deprez & Gutekunst, which amalgamated with Colnaghi shortly before Richard opened his own dealership in 1895 at 16 King’s Street, St James’s Square,52 moving to premises at 10 Grafton Street in January 1910.53 He was in Switzerland when the First World War broke out and was prevented from returning to London due to his German nationality. His entire stock – including prints by Rembrandt, Dürer ‘and other Old Masters’ – was

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Fig. 14.5 Rembrandt van Rijn, The Three Crosses, 1653. Engraving, 36.5 x 45 cm. Johannesburg Art Gallery.

confiscated by the British government and auctioned by Garland-Smith & Co., London, in December 1920.54 The present-day dealership into which Gutekunst was absorbed, Galerie Kornfeld in Bern, has no material from the Gutekunst London archive.55 There seems to have been a hiatus in Pim’s collecting between Gutekunst’s departure from London until the early 1920s, when he resumed contact with Gutekunst, who had now amalgamated with Klipstein in Bern under the name Gutekunst & Klipstein.56 Pim also traded with Colnaghi in the 1920s,57 and a couple of other firms and individual artists,58 but Richard Gutekunst – until his retirement in late 192859 – was Pim’s principal partner in establishing a collection. It is not clear when Pim started his print collection. It may have been in the 1890s (a press cutting of 1932 records he had assembled the collection ‘in the course of 40 years’),60 while Gutekunst suggests Pim had been dealing with him at least since 1902.61 The idea for creating a representative collection may have germinated in early conversations with Gutekunst at his London gallery, possibly in the 1890s before the outbreak in 1899 of the Second South African War and resuming after the end of hostilities. In a letter of 28 July 1904, Gutekunst remarked: ‘I think you have now a very fine and representative collection and can afford to add to it leisurely,’ thus suggesting that by that date a considerable core had already been created. Correspondence in the

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Johannesburg Art Gallery’s archives is testament to their long-standing relationship, focusing as it does on the creation and refining of Pim’s private collection. It also reveals that Pim was an informed and sometimes exacting client. Pim’s motive behind forming such a fine and representative print collection seems more than one of personal enjoyment, although that was certainly part of the equation. He was generous in sharing his knowledge through talks and lending his prints to exhibitions, and an educational motivation seems central to the whole endeavour. He wished to show the history of printmaking through the best possible examples, from Schongauer to Whistler, and to explain the different techniques – the informative and scholarly catalogues accompanying two loan exhibitions in 1932, one in the Durban Municipal Art Gallery and the other in the Johannesburg Art Gallery, demonstrate this.62 Pim’s long-term goal undoubtedly was to place his collection in a public institution. On his death, in April 1934, he bequeathed to the Johannesburg Art Gallery a collection of well over 500 prints,63 ranging from Old Masters (including 42 Rembrandts and 14 Dürers) to modern examples, thus establishing a major print cabinet at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, which has grown into one of the most important in South Africa.64

Conclusion The aim of this chapter was to disentangle fact from fiction in narratives about Dutch Old Master paintings in the cultural history of white South Africans. Because the Dutch colonized the Cape in 1652, and thus shared a timeframe with the Golden Age of Dutch painting, there was an expectation that there would be rich holdings of such paintings in South African public collections. This narrative was later developed by Afrikaner nationalists, descendants of the Dutch settlers, in an effort to reconstruct a noble history that justified their claim to the land. It reached a crescendo in 1952, with the tercentenary celebrations of the arrival of Dutch settlers at the Cape. Ironically, this coincided with the first credible published research into Dutch Old Master paintings in South Africa, which exposed the myth for what it was. Dutch settlers and their descendants had little to no interest in Old Master paintings, and there was no wealth to support art museums or to attract major dealers in Old Masters. The first museum collection devoted to seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish Old Masters, the Michaelis Collection, was gifted to the nation in 1914 by a British citizen of the Randlord class. There was, however, an unusual case during the early twentieth century of a collector of original prints, who, in a way, established informal agencies for foreign-based dealers like Gutekunst and Colnaghi through his long-distance acquisition methods. He was also grounded in South Africa, with a keen sense of social and cultural responsibility. He created and bequeathed to the Johannesburgh Art Gallery in 1934, a collection of 551 prints of exceptional quality and educational value, its group of over 40 Rembrandts ensuring a presence in South Africa of the greatest of the seventeenth-century Dutch Old Masters. South Africa may not have benefitted from the Randlords’ Old Master collections (Michaelis aside), but it was the beneficiary of the core of what has developed into one of the finest collections of original prints in a South African art gallery.

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If nothing else, this essay reveals how fraught the terrain of Old Masters and South Africa was and still is, with its entanglement of colonial wealth and national identity, and the sordid underbelly of exploitation which enabled the distant purchases of masterpieces. It is not a simple narrative, but it is one with unexpected discoveries and multiple layers which reveal that this field of study is by no means static or apolitical, even more so today.

Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

For example, a British visitor to the South African National Gallery, Cape Town – today known as the Iziko South African National Gallery – expressed regret that there were no Dutch paintings from early settler collections; see ‘F. L.’, ‘The Cape of Good Hope Art Gallery’, Art Journal 46 (1894): 298–300. The VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) was a private company with headquarters in Amsterdam, established in 1602 to regulate trading between the Netherlands and the East Indies; see Christopher Saunders and Nicholas Southey, A Dictionary of South African History, 2nd edn (Cape Town: David Philip, 2001 [1998]), 60–1. Martine Gosselink, ‘Jan van Riebeeck, the Founder of a VOC Post’, in Good Hope: South Africa and The Netherlands from 1600, ed. Martine Gosselink, Maria Holtrop and Robert Ross (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 2017), 51. The National Party victory in 1948 heralded the apartheid era that ended with the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC) in February 1990 and the first democratic elections in April 1994. Saunders and Southey, A Dictionary of South African History, 12–13, 121–2. Leslie Witz, Apartheid’s Festival: Contesting South Africa’s National Pasts (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003), 33. Both Witz and Gosselink write about the development of this narrative; see Witz, Apartheid’s Festival, 30–83; Gosselink, ‘Jan van Riebeeck’, 53. P. Anton Hendriks, ‘Preface’, in Catalogue of a Van Riebeeck Festival Exhibition Organised by the Government of the Netherlands: The Van Riebeeck Family Portraits: Africana: Dutch Paintings of the XVII Century (Johannesburg: Johannesburg Art Gallery, Joubert Park, April–May 1952), 2. Dirk Bax, Hollandse en Vlaamse Schilderkunst in Zuid-Afrika: Hollandse en Vlaamse Schilderijen uit de Zeventiende Eeuw in Zuid-Afrikaanse Openbaar Bezit (Amsterdam: J.H. de Bussy, 1952). T. Martin Wood, The Max Michaelis Gift to the Union of South Africa, The Old Town House, Cape Town: Illustrated Catalogue of Flemish and Dutch Paintings, with Introduction and Biographical Notes by T. Martin Wood (London: William Clowes & Sons, 1913). This replaced the earlier catalogue of the Grosvenor Gallery exhibition, 23 May–11 June 1913. Bax published two further major works on seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings in South African public collections: Dirk Bax, Zuid-Afrika’s Eerste Openbare Verzameling Op Het Gebied van Kunst en Etnologie, 1764–1821. Schenkers: Von Dessin, James Cook, James King. Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, Deel 75, no. 3 (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing, 1970); Dirk Bax, Catalogue of the Michaelis Collection, The

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11 12 13

14

15

16

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Old Town House, Cape Town, 1st rev. re-issue (Cape Town: The Rhodes National Heritage Trust, 1981 [1967]). When I began compiling a checklist of seventeenthcentury Dutch and Flemish paintings in South African public collections in late 1989, using Bax’s 1952 book as my base, I discovered further paintings and institutions with such holdings (and various loans that had been withdrawn), but hardly any archival material, provenance details, records of publications or photographs. Notable exceptions were M. M. Marais, ‘Die Nederlandse sewentiende euse portrette in die Johannesburgse Kunsmuseum’ (MA dissertation, University of Pretoria, 1971); Jillian Carman, Dutch Painting of the 17th Century/Nederlandse skilderkuns van die 17de eeu (Johannesburg: Johannesburg Art Gallery, 1988), a catalogue of the Johannesburg Art Gallery’s holdings; and Albert Werth, The Lady Michaelis Collection and Other 17th Century Works of Art in the Pretoria Art Museum (Pretoria: Pretoria Art Museum, 1992). The first comprehensive publication in the area since Bax’s 1952 book is Jillian Carman, Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings in South Africa: A Checklist of Paintings in Public Collections, compiled with the collaboration of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague (Johannesburg: Johannesburg Art Gallery, 1994). A portrait of Jan van Riebeeck by an unknown Dutch artist, given to the city of Cape Town in 1804. Bax, Hollandse en Vlaamse Schilderkunst, 13, 27–8, 129, pl. 7. Today it is considered a weak and over-restored copy of a later century, and not even a likeness. Carman, Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings, 94. Translation of Bax’s title, Zuid-Afrika’s Eerste Openbare Verzameling Op Het Gebied van Kunst en Etnologie. Anna Tietze, A History of the Iziko South African National Gallery: Reflections on Art and National Identity (Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press, 2017). Two attributed to Cornelis Pietersz. Bega, one to Johan van Gool; see Carman, Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings, 21, 37, 98–100. Roworth’s unauthorized actions prompted a commission of enquiry by the Department of the Interior in 1947. Bax, Zuid-Afrika’s eerste openbare verzameling, 152–3. Such dealers travelled the country, buying and selling second-rate art to the colonies, a practice also prevalent in Australia, where it was described as ‘a notorious old scandal’; see Monique Webber’s Chapter 13 in this volume. Anthony Trollope, South Africa (Cape Town: Balkema, 1973 [1878]). J. H. Davidson, who edited the 1973 edition and wrote an introduction, quotes Gladstone and gives other disparaging references to South Africa, largely prompted by Trollope’s book. The Randlords belonged neither to the British upper classes nor the aristocracy, but were characterized as ‘upper middle-class people with upper-class aspirations’. M. Stevenson, Art and Aspirations: The Randlords of South Africa and Their Collections (Vlaeberg: Fernwood Press, 2002), 181 n. 4. Like the American Gilded Age collectors, the Randlords bought Old Masters sold by impoverished English aristocrats in the late nineteenth century. Agnès Penot and Inge Reist discuss this phenomenon in their Chapters 10 and 11 in this volume. Stevenson, Art and Aspirations. Stevenson lists items and provenances in each collection in M. Stevenson, ‘Old Masters and Aspirations: The Randlords, Art and South Africa’ (PhD dissertation, University of Cape Town, 1997), Appendices 1–5. For the sake of clarity, I do not give the collectors’ titles as their knighthoods and baronetcies were awarded at different times during this period.

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18 For the sociopolitical context of the founding of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, see Jillian Carman, Uplifting the Colonial Philistine: Florence Phillips and the Making of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2006). 19 Robert O’Byrne, Hugh Lane, 1875–1915 (Dublin: Lilliput, 2000). 20 C. Campbell Ross, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Johannesburg: Illustrated Catalogue (Johannesburg: Argus Company, 1910), no. 87a. Despite being included in the 1910 catalogue, the portrait was not part of the opening collection and was only completed in 1913. 21 Morna O’Neill, ‘Finding Room for Art: William Orpen’s Portrait of Sir Otto Beit (1913)’, Home Subjects: A Working Group Dedicated to the Display of Art in the Private Interior, c. 1715–1914, 5 June 2017, online at: https://www.homesubjects. org/2017/06/05/finding-room-for-art-william-orpens-portrait-of-sir-otto-beit-1913/ (accessed 25 May 2020). 22 M. Arkin, ‘Beit, Alfred’, in Dictionary of South African Biography, I, ed. W. J. de Kock (Cape Town: Nasionale Boekhandel, 1968), 62–4; M. Arkin, ‘Beit, Sir Otto John’, in Dictionary of South African Biography, II, ed. W. J. de Kock and D. W. Krüger (Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council [HSRC], 1972), 50–1. 23 O’Byrne, Hugh Lane, 132. 24 Stevenson, ‘Old Masters and Aspirations’, Appendix 2. 25 Ibid., Art and Aspirations, 147. 26 Carman, Uplifting the Colonial Philistine, 142–3. 27 Ibid., 249–50. 28 Willem van de Velde II, with possible collaboration from Ludolf Bakhuysen, Marine with Shipping, 1672. Carman, Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings, 68. 29 Stevenson, Art and Aspirations, 148. 30 Thelma Gutsche, ‘Michaelis, Sir Maximilian’, in Dictionary of South African Biography, II, ed. de Kock and Krüger, 472–3; Michael Stevenson, ‘History of the Collection’, in Michaelis Collection: The Old Town House, Cape Town, ed. Hans Fransen (Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers, 1997), 29–43. 31 Stevenson, ‘History of the Collection’. 32 Wood, ‘Introduction’, in The Max Michaelis Gift, 9–16. Wood’s following comments and quotations are from this source. 33 It was formally given to the Union of South Africa on 16 May 1914, opened in the refurbished Old Town Hall, Cape Town, on 2 October 1916, and was officially inaugurated on 8 May 1917. Bax, Catalogue of the Michaelis Collection, 67, 74. 34 Review in the The Daily Telegraph, 27 May 1913, quoted in Stevenson, Art and Aspirations, 103. 35 Fransen, Michaelis Collection, 107–8. 36 The Dancing Dog was in Lane’s collection in 1907, probably bought from Sir Algernon Coote with the intention of selling it. He tried to sell it to Trotti & Co, Paris (letter to Lane from Trotti, 16 July 1907, National Library of Ireland [NLI], Hugh Lane papers, MSS.13,071–2) and subsequently sold (or lodged) it with Agnew’s, 18 July 1908, where it remained, until 15 May 1911, when Lane retrieved it to form part of the collection he sold to Michaelis in 1912. Archives of the National Gallery (NGA), London, NGA27/1/1/11, Agnew’s Stock Book 9, no. 2700. 37 Bax, Catalogue of the Michaelis Collection, 2; Carman, Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings, 15. 38 Quoted in Stevenson, ‘History of the Collection’, 32. The other two galleries are the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin (1908) and the Johannesburg Art Gallery (1910).

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39 According to Stevenson, no inventory or catalogue of the collection has been located. However, it is likely to have consisted of seventeenth-century Dutch and other Old Masters of the type collected by the ‘Wernher-Beit coterie’; see Stevenson, Art and Aspirations, 94. 40 Stevenson notes that seventy paintings were lent; see Stevenson, Art and Aspirations, 184 n. 6. 41 Fransen, Michaelis Collection, 125. 42 Bax, Catalogue of the Michaelis Collection, 2. 43 Anna Tietze, ‘The Problem of Originality and Value in the Lady Michaelis Gift to the South African National Gallery’, South African Journal of Art History 25, no. 2 (2010): 161–76; Werth, The Lady Michaelis Collection. 44 Anna Cunningham, Howard Pim, Pamphlet No. 20, n. p. (Johannesburg: Parktown & Westcliff Heritage Trust, 1987); Thelma Gutsche, ‘Pim, James Howard’, in Dictionary of South African Biography, I, ed. W. J. de Kock (Cape Town: Nasionale Boekhandel, 1968), 621–2; M. L. Hodgson, ‘Howard Pim’, June 1934 tribute reprinted in Off the Cuff 11 (Summer 1985): 6. 45 Hodgson, ‘Howard Pim’. 46 Archives of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (hereafter JAG Archives), Pim Papers. Letters during 1904 to Pim from Richard Gutekunst, London, suggest this. 47 Book post was preferred as it was far cheaper and less complicated than parcel post and shipping agents. JAG archives, Pim Papers, Gutekunst to Pim, 25 January 1905. 48 Ibid., 28 July 1904. 49 Ibid., 30 January 1914. 50 Harold J. Wright of Colnaghi in a letter to Montague Pim (Howard’s son) notes that Pim used only Gutekunst prior to the War: ‘After the War Mr. Gutekunst set up business again in Berne and your Father resumed his practice of obtaining prints from him, until he finally retired, a few years before your Father died.’ JAG Archives, Pim Papers, Wright to Pim, 8 September 1937. 51 JAG Archives, Pim Papers; see the letterheads he used when based in London. 52 Galerie Kornfeld, 150 Jahre Galerie: Geschichte des Hauses, 1864–2014 (Berne: Galerie Kornfeld, 2014), 12–14. Information on Deprez & Gutekunst and Richard Gutekunst comes from the British Museum research database, online at: https://www. britishmuseum.org/search (accessed 25 May 2020). 53 JAG Archives, Pim Papers, Gutekunst to Pim, 11 January 1910. 54 Galerie Kornfeld, 150 Jahre Galerie, 14. 55 Email from C. Schauffer, Galerie Kornfeld, Berne, to the author, 20 May 2017. 56 JAG Archives, Pim Papers; a letter from Gutekunst to Pim, 24 March 1921, implies they were in contact again before that date. 57 JAG Archives, Pim Papers, Colnaghi to Pim, 4 March 1926, 3 May 1926, 18 September 1931, 23 September 1931. JAG Archives, Pim Papers: Harold Wright of Colnaghi, in letters to Montague Pim, 8 September 1937 and 3 November 1937, discusses Pim’s dealings with Gutekunst and Colnaghi, and a letter of 24 March 1938 from Wright to Anton Hendriks, the new director of JAG, attaches a combined (but incomplete) list of prints that Pim bought from both Gutekunst and Colnaghi. 58 For example, JAG Archives, Pim Papers, Reid and Lefevre (August 1929), the Fine Art Society (September 1931), Seymour Haden (September 1933). 59 JAG Archives, Pim Papers, in a letter of 31 December 1927, Gutekunst informs Pim that 1928 will be his last year as a printseller as he planned to leave on 31 December 1928.

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60 ‘H.A.C.’, ‘Pim Etchings on View: 40 Years to Get Master-Prints: To-morrow’s Art Gallery Show’, Rand Daily Mail, 5 September 1932. 61 JAG Archives, Pim Papers, Gutekunst to Pim, 20 February 1905. 62 Catalogue of an Exhibition of Etchings and Other Prints Lent by Mr. Howard Pim of Johannesburg (Durban: Municipal Art Gallery, 1932); Catalogue of Engravings, Etchings, Woodcuts and Mezzotints Lent by Howard Pim, Esq., CBE., on Exhibition at the Art Gallery, Joubert Park (Johannesburg: City of Johannesburg, 1932). 63 The accepted figure, recorded in the archives and literature, is 551 prints. The Pim Bequest catalogue of 1937, Johannesburg Municipal Art Gallery: Catalogue: The Howard Pim Bequest (Johannesburg: Johannesburg Art Gallery, 1937), lists 509 items without logical sequence or accuracy. Further research, conducted initially by Hendriks, with the assistance of Montague Pim and Harold Wright of Colnaghi, established the number of prints in the bequest as 551. 64 One of these, a duplicate of The Death of the Virgin, may be from another source.

Contributors Julia I. Armstrong-Totten is currently an independent provenance and archival researcher. For over two decades, she was a Senior Research Editor of the Project for the Study of Collecting and Provenance at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles,. Her recent publications include articles on late-eighteenth-century art dealers active in Britain, as well as the arrival of the Orléans Collection in London in the 1790s. Susanna Avery-Quash is Senior Research Curator (History of Collecting) at the National Gallery, London, where she is responsible for the Gallery’s research strand ‘Buying, Collecting and Display’. Her recent publications concerning the history of collecting and the art market include three co-edited volumes: London and the Emergence of a European Art Market, 1780–1820; The Georgian London Town House: Building, Collecting and Display; and Leonardo in Britain: Collections and Reception History (all 2019). Jillian Carman holds a doctorate in Art History and is a Visiting Research Associate at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She was formerly a curator at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Her publications include Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings in South Africa (1994) and Uplifting the Colonial Philistine: Florence Phillips and the Making of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (2006). Véronique Gerard Powell is a former Associate Professor in History of Art at the University of Paris-Sorbonne and a specialist in the reception history of Spanish art during the sixteenth–nineteenth centuries. Her strong interest in the history of collecting has resulted in several articles and a forthcoming publication on French collectors of Spanish painting, titled Plundering and Collecting: The Spanish Old Masters in France, 1800–1914. Agnès Penot is a researcher and a nineteenth-century French art, art market and provenance specialist. She is a former Fellow at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, and the Frick Collection, New York. Her book, La Maison Goupil: Galerie d’art Internationale au XIXe Siècle (2017), focuses on the history of the nineteenth-century print dealer and art gallery of La Maison Goupil. Barbara Pezzini is an art and cultural historian who has written extensively on European Old Masters and British art of the period 1830–1970. Barbara has previously worked in curatorial, research and archival projects for the National Gallery, London, the National Trust, The Burlington Magazine, and the Art UK Sculpture Project. 257

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Pier Ludovico Puddu holds a PhD in Art History and his thesis has received the Sapienza University Publication Award Esordi in 2019. He is currently a key researcher in the project ‘Arteca: Advanced Physical-Chemical Methods of Research and Protection of Cultural and Artistic Heritage’, at the Palacký University, Olomouc. He has published articles on the history of collecting and the art market. Inge Reist, founding Director of the Center for the History of Collecting at the Frick Collection, New York, has edited five volumes for the Center and has contributed to numerous publications on international art collecting. She is co-editor with Gail Feigenbaum of Provenance and Alternate History of Art (2012) and also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of the History of Collections. Léa Saint-Raymond received her PhD in Art History in 2018, from the Université Paris Nanterre, focusing on the launching of new artistic markets at Parisian auctions, from the 1830s through 1939. Alumna of the École normale supérieure, agrégée in social sciences, she received a double training in Economics (Paris School of Economics) and Art History (Sorbonne University). Catherine B. Scallen is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland. She has published on the history of Rembrandt painting and print connoisseurship, on Rembrandt’s etchings, and the relationships of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century European art historians with art dealers. Robert Skwirblies is a Research Assistant at the Art History Department at the Technische Universität Berlin, where he takes part in the research cluster ‘Translocations – Historical Enquiries into the Displacement of Cultural Assets’, and the Centre for Art Market Studies. His research focuses on cultural policy, art trade and personal networks in post-revolutionary Europe, and on the impact of the Italian Renaissance on the formation of Romanticisim in Germany. Imogen Tedbury has a PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art/The National Gallery, London, and is the Simon Sainsbury Curatorial Fellow at the National Gallery, London. She was Assistant Curator of the Art Collections and Picture Gallery at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the Robert Lehman Collection Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Her publications reflect her research interests in the history of collecting, reception and display of medieval and Renaissance art. Jelena Todorović is Professor for Early Modern Art at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. Since 2006, she has been head of the project ‘The State Art Collection at the Royal Compound in Belgrade’, which in 2018 received the Europa Nostra Award. She has published widely on the subject of Baroque culture and on collecting in Yugoslavia in the 1930s.

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Monique Webber is a Teaching Associate and Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne and a Teaching Associate at Monash University Art Design and Architecture. Her research centres on the relationship between urban environments and cultural expression. Embracing international architectural cultures from the early modern to the contemporary eras, this focus incorporates parallel inquiry into art history, design and society.

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Index Page numbers in italics indicate illustrations, figures and tables agents and the market in Old Masters 2, 11, 13, 20, 83 employed by dealers 3, 15, 76–7, 133, 161, 192n.8, 199, 249 museums and galleries relationship 88, 96n.27, 96n.28, 164 see also under National Gallery other activities 13–14, 47, 83 types of dealer-agents 13, 45, 47–8, 161 diplomats as agents 83, 84 ‘gentleman-dealers’ 13–14, 33n.69, 120–1 see also under Berenson; Bode; Douglas Agnew’s buying and selling business methods branches in major art centres 18, 111, 118, 186 business success 118, 122, 123, 124–6, 186 buying at auctions 111, 121–3, 124 exhibitions 21, 121, 122 joint ownership of paintings 200, 206n.19 partnerships and alliances 21, 71, 118, 119, 128n.20, 197, 206n.19 transparent pricing arrangements 20, 122, 126–7 changes of name and ownership 118, 127n.8 clients and client relationships 117 American clients 23, 126, 164 aristocratic clients 124–5, 126, 195 expert knowledge and advice 25, 118, 123, 125, 130n.52 knowledge of preferences 123, 195 National Gallery 23, 83, 93, 123, 125, 126, 130n.49

new contacts made 123, 124, 126, 130n.48 politicians as clients 124–5, 126, 130n.48, 130n.49 provision of services to 23, 118 relationship of trust 122, 126 professionalization advertising 18, 19, 19, 34n.94, 121 publishers of catalogues raisonnés 22 research materials archives 4, 14 correspondence 14 day books 122 stock books 4, 21, 118, 119, 122–5, 124, 128n.17, 129n.44, 130n.48 special interests 123 ‘Early English’ art 18, 119, 120, 122, 123, 128n.17, 128n.20, 128n.23 modern art 122–3, 129n.44 Old Masters 14, 15, 25, 117–18, 122–6, 129n.44, 135 Agnew, Thomas, the elder 118 see also Agnew’s Agnew, Thomas, the younger 118 see also Agnew’s Agnew, William 118–19, 121, 125, 128n.12 political career 119, 124, 125 selling and business methods 121–2, 123, 127, 128n.23 specialist knowledge and advice 22, 125 takes over leadership 117, 118 see also Agnew’s Aitken, Charles, Director of the Tate Gallery 227, 228 Aldobrandini Collection 57, 59, 64n.8, 66n.18, 66n.25, 67n.43

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Alexander, King of Yugoslavia (Aleksandar Karađorđević) 212, 215, 216, 217, 219 Altdorfer, Albrecht: Christ Taking Leave of His Mother 174n.10 Alte Pinakothek, Munich 12, 48 Altieri Collection 64n.8 Altman, Benjamin 109, 152 American Art News 17, 18, 34n.93 American market in Old Masters American collectors changes in taste, effect of 8, 136, 181, 187, 192 in the Gilded Age 195, 205 millionaires 9, 12, 26, 117, 187, 195 development 2–3, 11, 26, 187–8, 195 imported from Europe 135–6, 167–8, 181, 195, 237n.51 research materials 3, 4 special interests Dutch and French Schools 188 Spanish School 135–6 Amsterdam 42, 71, 71, 74, 77, 154, 252n.2 see also Rijksmuseum Angerstein, John Julius 12, 59, 62, 67n.42, 83–4 Apollo 11, 18, 173n.1 aristocrats as collectors of Old Masters 11–12, 15, 33n.65, 66n.20, 84, 124, 126, 216 sales of collections due to economic crises 56, 93, 117, 123, 186, 195, 198, 253n.16 Arnold & Tripp 110 Artaria 45, 71 Arthur Tooth & Son see Tooth Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago 111, 137, 203 Artists’ Fund and Artists’ Aid Societies 203, 208n.33 art market arbitrage 10, 11, 32n.56 art dealers see dealers changes in the social profile of clients 11–13, 33n.65 import and export of works of art 10–11, 39–40, 50n.7 market in Old Masters see Old Masters and the art market

see also under Yugoslavia art periodicals and publications and the market in Old Masters 3, 11, 18, 109, 123 Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 213, 222n.12 Aston Sale 122 auctions and auctioneers and the market in Old Masters 3, 14, 15, 21, 43, 80n.11 announcements, catalogues and distributions lists 40, 72, 72, 80n.12 risk premiums 105, 107, 113n.15 see Paris auctions and the sale of Old Masters Australia in the market for Old Masters availability of copies only 225 colonial past, effect of 11, 12, 26, 225, 228, 233 cultural identity relationship 26–7, 225, 227, 230 development 26–7, 225, 227, 234 European market relationship 2–3, 11, 12, 27, 232, 233, 234 paintings bought by dealers and re-sold in Europe 242 public taste, effect of 226, 228, 233 see also Melbourne National Gallery The Australian News for Home Readers 226 Bache, Jules 12, 200, 203 Baker, Charles H. Collins, Keeper of the National Gallery 166 Bamberger, Henri 135, 143n.33 sale of collection 143n.33 Barberini Collection 64n.8, 66n.18 Barbizon School 108, 181 Bardini, Stefano 16 Baring, Thomas 12, 122, 129n.35 Bartolo di Fredi: Adoration of the Magi 175n.24 Baslini, Giovanni 93 Bax, Dirk 242, 252n.9 Hollandse en Vlaamse Schilderkunst in Zuid-Afrika 241–2 Bayer, Thomas 3, 14, 111, 118, 121, 127n.1 Beccafumi, Domenico Cloelia’s Flight 219, 220

Index Saint Ansanus of Siena Baptising the People (now attrib. to follower of) 171, 172 Beckford, William 23, 77–8 Beeche, Hector 110 Beit, Sir Alfred, 2nd Baronet 242, 244 Beit, Otto 12, 242 collection of Old Masters 243, 244, 248 portrait by Orpen 243, 243, 243–4, 254n.20 Bellini, Giovanni Crucifixion 150, 151, 158n.18 Feast of the Gods 57, 66n.25 Saint Jerome Reading 89 Virgin and Child 89 Bellotto, Bernardo Grand Canal Looking North-East ... (prev. attrib. to Canaletto) 231, 238n.74 Il Campo di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice (prev. attrib. to Canaletto) 126 Ruins of the Forum, Rome (prev. attrib. to Canaletto) 231, 238n.74 Benson, Robert Henry: sale of collection 219, 223n.37 Benvenuto di Giovanni: Madonna and Child (now attrib. to Girolamo de Benvenuto) 170–1, 172 Beraldi, Henry: Graveurs du XIXe siècle 191 Berckheyde, Gerritt The Market Place and Town Hall, Haarlem 231, 239n.83 Town Hall, Amsterdam 230, 231, 232, 233, 234 The Town Hall on Dam Square, Amsterdam 230–1, 239n.83 Berenson, Bernard acts as adviser and agent 162, 202 Colnaghi 187 Joseph Duveen 22, 25, 147, 151, 156, 212, 219 Paul, Prince Regent of Yugoslavia 212, 213 Bernheim Jeune 110, 186 Berthon fils 110 Bettendorf, Leopold: as a dealer-collector 45

277

Blakeslee, Theron J. 21 Blumenthal, George 170 Boccaccino: Christ Carrying the Cross 91 Bode, Wilhelm von 148 Consultative Committee of The Burlington Magazine 153, 159n.31 Douglas relationship 170 buys paintings, including panels of Santa Croce Altarpiece 165, 166, 168, 176n.42 uses as agent 165–6, 176n.49 Joseph Duveen relationship 25, 147, 149, 150, 213 acts as adviser and scout 25, 149, 151–2, 153, 154, 156, 157n.3, 162 assistance with clients and works of art 150 auctions private library (bought by Duveen) 153–4, 159n.35, 159n.36 Bellini’s Crucifixion episode 150, 158n.18 friendship 152–5, 156 meeting in Berlin 153 opinion on 155–6 receives gifts for Berlin museums 24, 149, 150, 151, 153, 154 receives money from 154, 159n.38, 159n.39 visits in New York 151 research materials correspondence 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153–4, 158n.19 memoir 155 role the market for Old Masters 147, 149 acquires works for Berlin museums 147 acts as adviser and agent for private collectors 25, 147, 149, 150, 151, 244, 246 dealer relationships 147, 149, 151, 157n.2, 158n.11, 158n.19 see also Joseph Duveen relationship above position as a museum director 24, 25, 147, 149, 213

278

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praises Russian sale of Old Masters 203, 208n.40 reputation as a scholar and connoisseur 147–8, 149, 151, 153, 154, 159n.30, 173 specialist knowledge Netherlandish painting 149 Rembrandt 147–8, 152, 155, 246 Renaissance sculpture 149, 152, 153, 159n.31 Bodkin, Thomas 170, 171, 172 Böhler, Julius 218 Boijmans Collection 44 Bonaparte, Lucien: collection of Old Masters 44 Bonington, Richard Parkes 192n.10 Bonnemaison, Féréol: as a dealer-collector 45, 51n.28 Borbón, Infante Sebastián Gabriel de 136, 137 Borenius, Tancred 219 Borghese Collection 59, 64n.8, 66n.18 Botfield, Beriah 78, 82n.48 Botticelli, Sandro 204 Adoration of the Kings 9 Assumption of the Virgin (now attrib. to Botticini) 130n.49 Botticini, Francesco: Assumption of the Virgin (prev. attrib. to Botticelli) 130n.49 Boucher, François 183 Le Fleuve Scamandre (after) 113n.23 Portrait of Madame de Pompadour 105, 113n.23 Surprised Nymph 105 Bouguereau, William 187 Bourdon, Sébastien 105 Boussod, Léon 185 Boussod, Valadon & Cie see Goupil Boxall, Sir William, Director of the National Gallery 91, 92, 93, 97n.46 Braun & Cie 191 Brera Academy, Milan 41 Breton, Jules: The Last Gleanings 199, 206n.18 Bristol, Lord see Hervey, Frederick Augustus British market in Old Masters analysis of sales 3, 4

anger at export of works of art to Germany and America 164–8, 176n.42, 176n.57, 177n.59 availability of paintings 93, 124, 195 collectors and changes in taste 8, 31n.50 development 2, 11, 24, 72 effect of economic crises 70, 77, 79, 117, 123, 186, 195 fuelled by wealth of South African Randlords 242, 253n.16 illicit practices by dealers 10–11, 39, 77, 81n.36 imported from Europe 161, 228, 237n.48 Italian Old Masters 39, 42 see also London and the market in Old Masters British School 3, 7, 129n.44 see also ‘Early English’ art Brondgeest, Albertus 21, 71, 76, 77, 81n.29, 81n.37 portrait by Hamburger 76 Brooks, Henry Jamyn: Private View of the Royal Academy 1888 Old Master Exhibition 125, 125 Brooks, James Marshall 122 Bryan, Michael 17 Biographical and Critical Dictionary of Painters and Engravers 22 private contract sales 20 Buchanan, William research materials correspondence 3, 8, 23, 39 memoirs 3, 59, 61, 62, 67n.32, 68n.48 selling and business methods alliance with Smith 71, 71 attempts to start national collections 33n.68 specialist knowledge 8 Burlington Fine Arts Club: exhibition of Sienese art (1904) 163, 164, 169 panels of Santa Croce Altarpiece 164, 175n.34 The Burlington Magazine 16, 18, 19, 34n.93, 34n.94, 233 Consultative Committee 153, 159n.31

Index Burne-Jones, Edward: The Garden of Pan 231, 238n.74 Burton, Sir Frederic, Director of the National Gallery 83, 93, 123, 175n.33 Butler, Charles: sale of collection 175n.24, 176n.49 Byers, Alexander McBurney 196, 197 Caliari, Carlo 223n.38 Campbell, Oswald Rose: The Sculpture Gallery, Melbourne (engraving, with Grosse) 226 Camuccini, Pietro artistic career 56–7 picture restorer 57, 65n.12 Self-Portrait 56 biographical details 65n.12 collector of Old Masters 57, 59, 63 dealer in Italian paintings 10, 14, 57, 63, 65n.12 export of paintings to England 15, 55, 58–9, 61–3, 66n.28 illicit practices 10, 14, 24, 39, 55, 58–9, 62–3, 68n.54 ownership of the paintings 59, 63, 67n.43, 67n.44 sale in London (1801) 55, 57, 58, 59, 61–2, 63, 68n.47, 68n.48 importance in the market in Old Masters 55, 57, 62 National Gallery relationship 59, 61, 67n.44 partnership with Alexander Day 24, 47, 56, 57, 58, 63, 66n.17, 66n.19, 66n.27, 66n.28 research materials account book 55, 57, 58, 66n.27, 66n.28 correspondence 39, 49n.4, 59, 62, 63 inventories 57 receipts and other material 59, 66n.18, 66n.25, 66n.28, 67n.40, 67n.41 selling and business methods clients 57, 59, 62, 66n.17 exhibitions 59 loan of money to clients to facilitate purchases 68n.49

279

networking, importance of 24 partnerships 21, 59, 62, 67n.36 Camuccini, Vincenzo 39, 45–6, 56, 66n.19, 66n.20 Canaletto 183, 228 Il Campo di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice (now attrib. to Bellotto) 126, 126 Cándamo Iriarte, Carlos González de 135, 143n.34 Carlin Sale 143n.34 Carracci, Annibale Christ Appearing to Saint Peter on the Appian Way 61, 61, 62, 66n.29 Saint Gregory at Prayer 57–8 Carstairs, Charles (Knoedler & Co.) 196, 197, 205n.7, 206n.10 business alliances 26, 197, 198–9, 200, 202, 205, 206n.19 client relationships 199, 202, 206n.19 correspondence 197, 202, 206n.19, 207n.28 investing in Old Masters 186, 187, 196–7, 198, 202 Cartoni, Felice 47 Cassatt, Mary 136, 143n.44, 195 Cassirer, Paul 138, 139, 144n.58 Cavalcaselle, Giovanni Battista 10, 90, 91, 95n.21 History of Painting in Italy (with Crowe) 22, 90, 162 Celotti, Luigi 8, 47 Chaney, Edward 95n.14 Chaplin, John 78 Chardin, Jean Siméon 109, 183, 204 The Academy of Painting 105–6, 113n.24 Charteris, Francis, Lord Elcho 89–90 Christiani, Baron de 105, 108 Christie’s (auction house), London 121, 123 relationship with dealers 20, 22, 75, 80n.25, 121 research materials 3 sales of major collections 124, 125, 126, 129n.35, 200 Clarembaux, Émile 183 Clark, Kenneth 212, 213

280

Index

Collantes, Francisco: Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert 133 collectors and the market in Old Masters 117 American collectors see under American market in Old Masters; Duveen, Sir Joseph dealer-collectors 8, 44–5, 57, 63, 74, 76–7 European collectors 8, 42, 47, 57 expert advice on collections see under Bode, Wilhelm von; Douglas, Robert Langton social profile, changes in 11–13, 33n.65 taste, changes in 4, 8, 23, 30n.25, 31n.49, 165 see also under Paris auctions see also aristocrats; industrialists; named collectors; royalty Collins, William: Rustic Hospitality 123 Collot, Jean-Pierre: sale of collection 10, 86 Colnaghi Berenson relationship 187 buying and selling business methods branches in major art centres 18, 186 buying at Paris auctions 111, 115n.48 exhibitions 21 joint ownership of paintings 197, 198–9, 200, 202, 206n.19 partnerships 183, 186–7, 197, 198, 199, 200, 204, 206n.12 premises 17, 18 clients and client relationships 14, 195 American clients 23, 187, 195 publishers of catalogues raisonnés 22 research materials 4, 14 Colnaghi, Martin 3, 14, 21 Colonna Collection 59, 62, 64n.8, 66n.18, 67n.41 Compte-Calix, François 183, 192n.6 Coninck, Emile de 111 The Connoisseur 11, 18 Constable, John 5, 119 Copley Society Exhibition of Paintings by Spanish Masters (1912), Boston 138

Correggio 75, 81n.28 The Madonna of the Basket 81n.28, 84 Correr, Teodoro: as a dealer-collector 45 Corvi, Domenico 57 Cotman, John Sell 128n.23 Cox, David 128n.23 Crawford, Earl of: sale of collection 175n.23 Creswick, Thomas: A Shore (with Frith) 129n.44 Crowe, Joseph Archer: History of Painting in Italy (with Cavalcaselle) 22, 90, 162 Cust, Robert H. Hobart 174n.11 Cuyp, Aelbert 143n.33, 188 d’Abzac, Marquis 110 Danlos, Auguste 110, 186 Darnley, Lord: sale of collection 125, 200 David, Gerard: Deposition 174n.10 Day, Alexander biographical details 55–6, 57, 64n.7, 67n.30 agent 57, 66n.20 artistic career 47, 55–6, 64n.6 dealer in Italian paintings 55, 56, 63 export of paintings to England 55, 58–9, 61–3, 66n.28 illicit practices 24, 55, 58–9, 62–3, 68n.54 ownership of the paintings 59, 63, 67n.43, 67n.44 sale in London (1801) 55, 57, 58, 59, 61–2, 63, 68n.47, 68n.48 importance in the market in Old Masters 55, 56, 57, 62 National Gallery relationship 59, 61, 67n.44 partnership with Pietro Camuccini 24, 47, 56, 57, 58, 63, 66n.17, 66n.19, 66n.27, 66n.28 research materials account book 55, 57, 58, 66n.27, 66n.28 export licences 56, 65n.10 inventories 57 receipts and other material 59, 66n.18, 66n.25, 66n.28, 67n.40, 67n.41

Index selling and business methods clients 56, 57, 59, 62, 66n.17 exhibitions 59 lent money to clients to facilitate purchases 68n.49 networking, importance of 24 partnerships 21, 59, 62, 67n.36 dealers and the market in Old Masters agents employed 3, 15, 76–7, 133, 161, 192n.8, 199, 249 buying and selling business methods 20–1, 42–3 buying at Paris auctions 110–11 illicit practices 10–11, 14–15, 39, 40, 41, 45–7, 50n.7, 63, 68n.60, 77 innovative business practices 20 internationalization of trade 1, 3, 10–11, 32n.63, 69, 70, 72, 74 joint ownership of paintings 197, 198 liquidity issues 21 networks, importance of 24, 25, 26, 39, 42, 70, 72, 73, 79, 132 partnerships and collaborations 21, 72, 79, 183 postal services, use of 249, 255n.47 private contract sales 20 provision of services to clients 23 risk management 21 sales catalogues and leaflets 18, 39, 40, 43, 48, 72, 72, 80n.12 speculation 43, 47, 53n.66, 123 through exhibitions 20–1, 42, 43, 45, 109 understanding buyers’ preferences 23–4 clients and client relationships giving of gifts 24, 149 knowledge of preferences 23 museums 3–4, 12–13, 24, 25, 39, 43, 44, 47–8, 147 provision of services 23 professionalization 14, 15, 25, 42, 45–8, 49, 161 advertising 1, 14, 16, 17, 18–19 branding 18 premises see galleries; shops research materials

281

biographies and autobiographies 3 correspondence 3, 14 sales catalogues and leaflets 48 sales records 3, 101, 112n.1 specialist knowledge 18, 22–4 advisers, use of 22, 25, 42, 45 of clients and their preferences 23 by examining European works of art 22 expert knowledge and advice 1, 15, 22, 84, 88, 103, 110, 249 publishers of publications on paintings 22 scholarship 80n.7, 161 through publications and databanks 22, 25 types of antiques and curiosity dealers 13, 14 artists and restorers 45–7, 110 dealer-agents 13, 45, 47–8, 161 dealer-collectors 8, 44–5, 51n.28 print publishers 45 see also galleries; named dealers Deering, Charles 200 Defer-Dumesnil Sale 105, 106, 110–11 Delahante, Alexis 47 Dell, Robert 16–17 see also Shirleys Demotte of Paris 32n.63 Descamps, Alexandre Gabriel 183 Enfants effrayés à la vue d’une chienne 107, 114n.30 Descamps, Jean-Baptiste 22, 105 Desenfans, Noël 20 Desiderio da Settignano: Saint John the Baptist (prev. attrib. to Donatello) 184, 193n.17 Detrimont, Alexis Eugène 110 Domenichino: The Vision of Saint Jerome 59, 60, 66n.29 Donatello: Saint John the Baptist (now attrib. to Desiderio da Settignano) 184, 193n.17 Doucet, Jacques: sale of collection 108, 109 Douglas, Robert Langton 161 biographical details 161 Bode relationship 170 acts as agent for 165–6, 176n.49

282 buys paintings, including panels of Santa Croce Altarpiece 165, 166, 167, 176n.42 career as a dealer and agent 26, 161, 162, 163, 173, 174n.10 ideas on role of dealers 169–70 premises and galleries 163 sale of early Italian paintings to British and Irish museums 129n.35, 168–9, 170, 171 sells works from British collections to German and American collectors 164–8, 169, 170, 176n.42, 176n.57, 177n.59 careers as a scholar and museum professional 163, 168, 173 application for directorship of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 170 art historian 25, 161, 163 Director of National Gallery of Ireland see under National Gallery of Ireland exhibition curator 162–3, 174n.14 clients and client relationships 26, 163, 169 access to private collections 26, 164, 166 American clients 163, 164, 167–8, 170, 172–3 arranges transportation and insurance 161 secrecy 167 Murray relationship 161–2 National Gallery relationship offers himself as an agent 164 proposes to reconstruct Santa Croce Altarpiece 164, 165, 166 publications 173 History of Siena 162 monograph on Fra Angelico 162 new edition of History of Painting in Italy (Cavalcaselle and Crowe) 22, 162, 163, 176n.44 specialist knowledge early Italian Renaissance painting 9, 25–6, 161, 162, 163, 166, 174n.11

Index Northern Renaissance painting 174n.10 Sienese School 9, 161, 162, 163, 164, 166, 172–3, 174n.11 Dowdeswell’s, London 11, 21 Druet, Eugène 110 Duccio Crucifixion Triptych 175n.23 Maestà 166, 176n.44 Dudley Sale 126 Dughet, Gaspard: Landscape with Abraham and Isaac 61, 62, 66n.28, 66n.29, 67n.40, 67n.41 Duplessis, Georges 189 Durand-Duclos, Edme-Laurent 110 Durand, Jean Marie Fortuné 110 Durand-Ruel, Paul buying and selling business methods business acumen 110, 136, 137, 140 buying at Paris auctions 110, 111, 133–4, 138, 142n.24, 186 joint ownership of paintings 200 networks, use of 132 from other dealers 131, 141n.9 travels to Spain to buy paintings 136, 137, 143n.46, 145n.59 clients and client relationships American clients 132, 135, 136, 137, 140 see also Havermeyer paintings given to guarantee loans 133, 135 galleries 18, 111, 134 New York 111, 138, 140 research materials Mémoires 133 stock books 139, 141n.13, 145n.62 Spanish Old Masters 25, 131, 132, 135, 136–40, 143n.37 El Greco 132, 134, 136, 137, 139, 140 Goya 132, 134–5, 136, 137, 138–40, 144n.55, 144n.56, 144n.57 special interests ‘École de 1830’ paintings 132 French Impressionists 132, 135 see also Spanish Old Masters above Dürer, Albrecht 106, 107, 186, 249, 251 Portrait de Jacob Muffet ... 113n.25

Index Durlacher, Henry 111, 153 Dutch East India Company (VOC) 241, 252n.2 Dutch Golden Age paintings 7, 9, 241, 245, 251 Dutch School 6, 7, 74, 103, 104, 105, 120, 122, 230, 231–2 see also Flemish School; Netherlandish School Duveen Brothers advisers, use of 153, 154, 159n.36 clients and client relationships 151 entry into the market for Old Masters 148, 149, 150 see also Duveen, Sir Joseph Duveen, Ernest 153 Duveen, Henry 152 Duveen, James Henry 3, 22 Duveen, Louis 151 Duveen, Sir Joseph (‘Joe’) 148, 221 Berenson acts as adviser and agent 22, 25, 147, 151, 156, 212, 219 Bode relationship 25, 147, 149, 150, 213 assistance with clients and works of art 150 Bellini’s Crucifixion episode 150, 158n.18 buys Bode’s private library at auction 153–4, 159n.35, 159n.36 friendship 152–5, 156 gives gifts to Berlin museums 24, 149, 150, 151, 153, 154 meeting in New York 151 sends money to 154, 159n.38, 159n.39 uses as adviser and scout 25, 149, 151–2, 153, 154, 156, 157n.3 visits in Berlin 153 buying and selling business methods business acumen 147, 153, 217 buys at auctions 109, 111, 150, 219 international trade 11, 69, 111 premises in London, Paris and New York 11, 14, 18, 32n.63, 154, 159n.38 private contract sales 20 recognizes importance of German market in Old Masters 149, 153

283 clients and client relationships American collectors 12, 109, 147, 150, 152, 153, 154 customer service skills 23, 147, 217 giving of gifts 24, 26, 149, 213 museums 147, 150, 217 National Gallery 24, 32n.52, 217 royalty 217 see also Paul, Prince Regent of Yugoslavia professionalization advertising 14, 18–19, 19, 34n.93, 152 research materials archives 4, 14, 212, 222n.17 correspondence 14, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153–4, 212–13, 214 stock books 20 specialist knowledge medieval and early Renaissance art 8–9 use of advisers see under Berenson; Bode Yugoslavia relationship donates paintings to set up museums 26, 211, 213, 214 see also Museum of Modern Art, Belgrade; State Art Collection, Belgrade personal involvement 212, 222n.11 see also Paul, Prince Regent political implications of assistance 26, 214–15, 216, 217, 222n.11 possibility of a decoration from the State 214 regards as a potential market 217, 218 see also under Paul, Prince Regent see also Duveen Brothers

‘Early English’ art 6, 119–20, 122 Eastlake, Sir Charles, Director of the National Gallery 8, 32n.52, 85, 88, 90, 91, 93, 94, 95n.21, 163 notebooks 88, 91, 96n.30 Edwards, Charles 133, 142n.20

284

Index

sale of paintings (owned by DurandRuel and given to guarantee loans) 132, 134, 135, 142n.29 Eichens, Philipp-Hermann 190 El Greco 132, 204 The Assumption of the Virgin 137 Cardinal Niño de Guevara 136 The Death of Laocoön 138, 139, 144n.68, 223n.39 Portrait of Covarrubias (now Portrait of Francisco de Pisa) 134 Saint Ildefonso 134 Saint Martin and the Beggar 200 View of Toledo 136, 144n.50 Elkins, William Lukens 188, 194n.34 Emmerson, Thomas 74 alliance with Smith 71, 73–4, 80n.14 portrait by Lewis 73 English market in Old Masters see British market in Old Masters English School see British School; ‘Early English’ art Esterházy Collection 44 Esteve y Marqués, Agustín: Portrait of a Young Woman Holding Two Roses (prev. attrib. to Goya) 132, 133, 135, 141n.18, 143n.36 European market in Old Masters 1, 3, 11, 24, 42, 72 see also French market; German market; Italian market; Portuguese market; Spanish market European Schools 6, 122, 187, 228, 237n.51 see named schools Evelyn, John 5 Everard, Prosper Léopold 111 exhibitions and the market in Old Masters 20–1, 42, 43, 45, 109 see also under named dealers Exposition au profit des inondés du midi (1887) 143n.36 Exposition des dessins de décoration ... (1880), Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris 103 Exposition des dessins de maîtres anciens (1879), École des BeauxArts, Paris 103

Exposition des portraits du siècle (1885), École des Beaux-Arts, Paris 143n.36 Fagan, Robert 64n.8 Falconieri Collection 66n.18 Farington, Joseph 59 Farrell, Sir William 126 Farrer, Henry 15, 71, 84 Fea, Carlo 62, 63, 68n.59 Febvre, Alexis 110, 134 Félibien, André 218 Felton, Alfred 226, 234 see also under Melbourne National Gallery Fenaroli Collection 93 Ferrarese School: The Conversion of Saint Paul (attrib.) 61, 67n.29 Fesch, Cardinal Joseph as a collector-dealer 44, 45 sale of art collection 10, 84, 85, 86 The Finding of the Holy Cross (print after Giorgione, by an anonymous artist) 46 First World War (1914–18): effect on the market in Old Masters 149, 211, 221n.2 Flaubert, Gustave: L’education sentimentale 15–16 Flemish School of painting 10, 44, 74, 103, 104, 105, 111 Flemish School: Virgin and Child (Ince Hall Madonna) (attrib. to Van Eyck) 229, 229, 237n.57 Fletcher, Pamela 2, 3, 4, 7, 15, 111 Florentine Academy 40, 41 Florentine School 7, 8, 12, 47, 89 Fortnum, Charles Drury Edward 12 Fortuny, Mariano 131 Foster’s (auction house) 121 Fowles, Edward 154 Fox-Strangways, Giles, 6th Lord Ilchester 198 Fragonard, Jean-Honoré 105, 109, 183 Francesco di Vannuccio: Annunciation and Assumption of the Virgin 175n.24 Francisco Goya’s Majas on a Balcony (print by an anonymous artist) 139 Frauenholz, Johann Friedrich 45

Index Freidhoff, Johann Heinrich 45 French market in Old Masters auctions and auctions houses see Paris auctions and the sale of Old Masters dealers and agents unethical activities 10, 25 development 24, 25, 72 enthusiasm for Spanish Old Masters 131, 132, 135 import of Italian Old Masters 42, 43 online sources for research 4 French School 6, 7, 10, 104–5, 107–8, 122 Frick Collection, New York: archives 4, 199 Frick, Henry Clay as a collector of Old Masters 12, 187, 197, 200 Duveen relationship 23 Knoedler relationship 26, 195, 196, 197, 198–9, 200, 202, 206n.19 Friedländer, Max J. 149, 156, 157n.3, 165 Frith, William: A Shore (with Creswick) 129n.44 Fromentin, Eugène 143n.35 Fry, Roger 167, 195, 198 Fuller Russell Sale 3, 164, 166, 167, 175n.33 Fusi, Antonio 48 Gainsborough, Thomas 6, 119, 120, 128n.20, 128n.21, 128n.23 Blue Boy 9, 32n.55 Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire 119, 120 Portrait of Mary Robinson 119 galleries, showrooms and salesrooms as collections of paintings of historical value 44 decoration 16–17 development 14, 15–17 importance 15, 17 influence on decoration of museums 17 location 15, 17–18, 34n.86 see also named galleries Gambart, Ernest 127 Gardner, Edmund G. 174n.11

285

Gardner, Isabella Stewart 23, 187 Gauchez, Léon 123 Gentileschi, Artemisia 6 George III, King of England 33n.69 German market in Old Masters 11 development 24, 42, 149, 153 Italian works bought from British collections 164–7, 176n.42, 176n.57 Gérôme, Jean-Léon 187, 192n.8, 196 Painting Breathes Life into Sculpture 187 Prayer in the Mosque of Quat Bey 187 Gersaint, Edmé-François 10 advertising 18 Getty Provenance Index 3, 4, 40, 59, 101 Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles 4, 115n.52, 158n.8, 205n.5, 206n.19, 212 Gherarducci, Silvestro dei: The Assumption of Saint Mary Magdalene (prev. attrib. to Taddeo di Bartolo) 171 Gijsbert, Johan, Baron Verstolk van Soelen 73 Giorgione The Finding of the Holy Cross (etching) 46 Virgin and Child with Saints (also attrib. to Palma Vecchio) 86 Giotto: Dormition of the Virgin 165 Giovanni di Paolo: Saint John the Baptist 175n.23 Girolamo da Carpi: Portrait of Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici and Monsignor Mario Bracci 67n.44 Girolamo da Treviso: The Adoration of the Kings (after Baldassarre Peruzzi) 47 Girolamo de Benvenuto: Madonna and Child (prev. attrib. to Benvenuto di Giovanni) 170–1, 172 Giustiniani Sale 44, 45 Gladstone, William 119, 125, 125, 242, 253n.15 Glaenzer, Eugène 187 Godcharle, Charles 132

286

Index

Gogué, Benjamin 131, 141n.6 Goldman, Henry 153 Goncourt, Edmond and Jules de: L’Art du XVIIIe siecle 109 Goodman, Gwelo 248 Gould, George J. 188 Goupil branches and galleries in major art centres in London 186, 192n.8, 193n.21 opening 4, 26, 181, 182–3, 186, 188, 192n.8, 193n.21 sale of branches 187, 188 buying and selling business methods artists hired on exclusive contracts 182, 183, 192n.6 buying at Paris auctions 21, 108, 110, 183, 185, 186 management of the supply chain 182 partnerships and networks 21, 183, 188, 190, 191 transparent pricing arrangements 127 work with local dealers and agents across the world 192n.8 clients and client relationships American clients 26, 181, 182, 188, 191, 192 Australian market 182, 192n.8 history 21, 181–2 dealers in modern paintings, prints and art reproductions 131, 181, 182, 186, 188, 189–91, 196 decline and eventual liquidation 181, 187, 189, 191, 193n.24 Knoedler relationship 187, 191, 196 the market for Old Masters acquired for own private collections 184–5 admit religious works of art better than modern ones 183–4 entry into market 183, 185 failure to respond to growing market 26, 135, 181, 182, 185, 186, 187, 188, 191, 192, 193n.24 lack of connoisseurship affects 183, 185

publications of reproductions Musée du Louvre: Maîtres de la peinture 191 Oeuvre de Albert Dürer 189 research materials catalogues 183 sales records and stock books 4, 141n.9, 182, 185, 188, 190, 193n.11, 194n.32 special interests French academic paintings 18, 181, 187 Spanish paintings 131 Goupil, Adolphe 131, 181–2, 186, 187, 188, 191 collection of Renaissance tapestries 184–5 Goupil, Albert (son of Adolph) 184 collection of Renaissance art objects and furnishings 184, 184, 185, 193n.16 Goupil & Cie see Goupil Goupil, Vibert & Cie see Goupil Goya, Francisco de 132–4 French craze for paintings of 132–4, 142n.29 works Antonio Gasparini 137 The Artist’s Daughter (or Young Girl with a Rose) (now attrib. to Esteve y Marqués) 132, 135 Bartolomé Sureda y Miserol 136 Cesare Borgia Taking Leave of His Family (Saint Francis Borgia) 135, 143n.37 Death of a Picador 143n.34 Doña Narcisa Barañana de Goicoechea 137, 144n.55 The Family of Carlos IV (completed by another artist) 139–40 Ferdinand VII when Prince of Asturias (attrib.) 139 Infanta Maria Isabel (attrib.) 139 Isidoro Máiquez 138, 145n.59 Juan Antonio Cuervo 137–8, 144n.57 Juan Bautista de Goicoechea 137, 144n.55 King Charles IV (attrib.) 139

Index Lady with a Fan (Portrait of Lorenza Correa) 134, 137, 143n.35 The Majas on a Balcony 136, 137, 140, 144n.51 The Marchioness of San Andrés 138 Martín Zapater 138, 145n.60 Portrait of a Draughtsman (Evaristo Pérez de Castro) 137, 144n.56 Portrait of Asensio Juliá, ‘El Pescadoret’ 132, 135, 140 Portrait of a Woman with a Guitar (now considered Manner of) 134, 134, 135, 142n.26 Portrait of Charlotte Corday (presumed) (attrib.) 132, 135 Portrait of General X (possibly Portrait of General Guye) 138, 145n.63 Portrait of Manuel Garcia (now called The Portrait of a Young Man in Brown) 143n.33 Procession in Valencia 143n.33 Queen Maria-Luisa (attrib.) 139 Sorting the Bulls 143n.34 Tadeo Bravo de Rivero 138, 145n.61 Thérèse Louise de Sureda 136 Tiburcio Pérez 137, 144n.57 Young Lady Wearing a Mantilla and a Basquina 138 Grand Manner paintings 56, 83 Great Depression: effect on market in Old Masters 1, 5, 26 Grosse, Frederick: The Sculpture Gallery, Melbourne (engraving, with Campbell) 226 Grosvenor Gallery, Bond Street, London 20–1, 246 Gualandi, Michelangelo 90, 91 Guardi, Francesco 188 Guercino: Glory of Saint Crysogono 57 Guggenheim, Michelangelo 16 Gulbenkian, Calouste 203, 204, 208n.42 Gunn, George 77–8, 82n.46 financial problems 78, 81n.43 partnership with Smith 71, 78, 82n.46 Gutekunst & Klipstein 249, 250 Gutekunst, Otto (Colnaghi) 186, 197, 198–9, 204, 249

287

Gutekunst, Richard 249–51, 255n.50, 255n.57, 255n.59 Hainauer Collection 150 Hals, Frans The Lute Player (now attrib. to Leyster) 244 Portrait of a Woman 246, 246 Hamburger, Johan Coenraad: Portrait of Albertus Brondgeest 76 Hamilton, Duke of 23, 124 Hamilton, Gavin 64n.8 Hamilton Palace Sale 124, 130n.49 Hamman, Maurice (Knoedler) 111 Hammer, Armand 208n.48 Harcourt, Cyril 164, 165 Harewood, 6th Earl 33n.65 Harkness, Mary and Edward Stephen 12 Haseltine, Charles 197 Haughton, Moses, Jr.: Portrait of John Smith 69 Havermeyer, Lousine and Harry sale of collection 188 Spanish art collection 136–7, 138, 143n.44, 143n.47, 144n.50, 195 Hazard, Mrs 110 Hébert, Ernest: Vierge de la Déliverance 183 Helmreich, Anne 2, 3, 7, 15 Hemming, Richard 119 Henderson, Alexander, Lord Faringdon 126 Henriquel-Dupont, Louis Pierre: Hemicycle (engraving) 191 Henschel, Charles (Knoedler and Co.) 204 Héris, Henri Joseph 71, 77, 81n.37 sale of collection 114n.35 Hermitage, St Petersburg 9, 71, 80n.9, 96n.28, 203, 204, 205, 208n.48 Hervey, Frederick Augustus, 4th Earl of Bristol 57, 66n.17, 66n.20, 67n.30 Hessel, Jos 110 Heugh, John: collection of works of art 123, 128n.21 Heywood, William 174n.11 Hobbema, Meindert 120, 183, 188

288 Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis 79n.5 Hogarth, William 120, 123, 128n.21 Holbein, Hans 204 Christina of Denmark 168, 177n.60, 177n.61 Holford Sale 8, 12, 13 Hollender, Max 110, 111 Holloway & Sons 183 Holmes, Sir Charles, Director of the National Gallery 232–3, 234 Hope, Thomas and Henry 12, 57 Hoppner, John 22 Portrait of Lady Louisa Manners 150 Horne, Herbert 162, 198 sale of collection 175n.22 Hôtel Drouot, Paris 131, 141n.11, 182, 193n.11 Hudson, Sir James 84 Huemer, Christian 2, 15 Huldschinsky Collection 156 Hume, Robert, the younger 23, 71, 78 Huntington family 9, 12 Hunt, William Holman Shadow of Death 122 Hutton, Edward 162 Iglesias y Bárcones, Monsignor Tomás, Patriarch of the West Indies 132 Illustrated London News 13, 18, 121 industrialists and entrepreneurs as art collectors 62, 138 in America 12, 117, 195, 196, 197 in Britain 12, 119, 122, 123, 126, 128n.21, 242 in South Africa 242–3, 244, 253n.16 Ingenheim, Count Gustav Adolf 47 Irvine, James 64n.8, 66n.25 Italian market in Old Masters auctions and sales 40, 40–1, 50n.12 dealer-agents 48 development of 24, 39, 72, 163–4 export 10, 11, 39–41, 42, 161 bureaucratic procedures 41, 50n.18 minor works of art sold or destroyed 40–2, 50n.12, 65n.9

Index restrictions on 10, 41–2, 45–6, 50n.15, 63, 68n.59, 91, 93 fall in prices due to historical events 55, 63 illicit practices by dealers 10, 39, 40, 41, 50n.7 regarded as ‘antique’ or ‘primitive’ 163–4, 175n.27 specialist knowledge 42 Italian School 6, 7, 8–9, 10, 44, 104, 105, 161, 163 Italian Unification (1861) 10, 91 Jacque, Charles 111 Jacques Seligmann et fils 32n.63 James, Henry: The Outcry 177n.61 Jean Boussod, Manzi, Joyant & Cie see Goupil Jenkins, Thomas 57, 64n.8 Johannesburg Art Gallery 243, 244, 245, 250–1, 256n.63, 256n.64 donations from Randlords 243, 244 Johnson, John Graver 12, 126, 172–3 Jonas, Édouard, Paul and Marcel 110, 111 Joullain, François-Charles 22 Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, Berlin 24, 149, 150, 151 Kann, Rodolphe 150, 244 Kauffmann, Angelika 6 Kleinberger, Franz 110, 111, 113n.21, 186 Knoedler and Co. branches and galleries 11 London 111, 187, 197, 206n.10 New York 111, 195–6, 196 Paris 18, 111, 188, 197 Pittsburgh 196–7, 206n.9, 206n.10 buying and selling business methods buying at Paris auctions 111, 186 international trade 11, 69, 107, 111, 186 joint ownership of paintings 197, 198–9, 200, 202, 206n.19 loan exhibitions 202–3, 208n.33 partnerships and collaborations 26, 186, 187, 188, 191, 197–8, 199, 200, 206n.12 private contract sales 20 clients and client relationships

Index American clients 12, 23, 187, 188, 195, 197, 204, 206n.12, 232 see also under Frick museums 197, 200 provision of services to clients 23, 202 relationship of trust and respect 205 Goupil relationship 187, 188, 191, 196 history opening and early years 26, 196, 205n.5, 205n.7 restructuring of the firm 187, 196, 205n.7 sale and closure 208n.48 the Old Master market 208n.48 entry into 119, 186, 187, 188, 196, 197 Russian Old Masters 203, 204, 205 Spanish Old Masters 145n.63 stock books as research materials 4, 20, 201, 206n.12 Knoedler, Michael American representative of Goupil 26, 196, 205n.5 founds Knoedler & Co. 26, 196, 205n.5 Knoedler, Roland 110, 187, 196, 197, 202, 205, 205n.7 Kraemer, Eugène 138, 145n.61 Krasnov, Nikolay 215 Kums, Edward 143n.35 Labensky, Franz 71, 80n.9 La Caze, Louis 78 Lafontaine, Pierre-Joseph 76–7 Lambert, Catholina 194n.34 sale of collection 188 Lancret, Nicolas 115n.48 Lane, Sir Hugh 14, 34n.86, 170, 243, 244, 245–6, 254n.36 Laneuville, Ferdinand 74, 105, 110, 113n.21, 113n.22 Lante Collection 66n.18 Laurent, Jean: The Death of Laocoön by El Greco (photograph) 138, 139 Lawrence, Sir Thomas 84 Lawrie & Company 197, 200 Lawson, William 11 Layard Collection 168, 177n.59

289

Layard, Sir Austen Henry, Trustee of the National Gallery 91, 92 Lebrun, Elizabeth Vigé 6, 7 Le Brun, Jean-Baptiste Pierre 10, 22, 31n.46, 188 Lecomte, Narcisse 189 Lehman, Philip and Robert 170, 197, 206n.12 Leigh Court Sale 125 Leonardo da Vinci 106 Étude de draperie 113n.25 Flora (bust, attrib.) 159n.31 Mona Lisa 190 Salvator Mundi 1 The Virgin of the Rocks 128n.23 León y Escosura, Ignacio 131 Lepke auction house, Berlin 203–4, 208n.42 Le Roy, Étienne 72, 110 Le Sueur, Eustache 105 Leutze, Emmanuel: Washington Crossing the Delaware 191 Lewis and Simmons 32n.63 Lewis, John Frederick: Thomas Emmerson Seated at a Table ... 73 Leyster, Judith 6 The Lute Player (prev. attrib. to Hals) 244 Lhermitte, Léon 182, 183 Lippo di Dalmasio: The Madonna of Humility 90 Lockhart, Charles 196 Lombardi-Baldi Collection 84, 89 London and the market in Old Masters changes in the market in nineteenth and early twentieth centuries availability of paintings 93, 117, 124, 195 sales of collections by aristocrats due to financial issues 93, 117, 123, 186, 195, 253n.16 comparison with the sale of modern works of art 14, 117, 127n.1 development 2, 11, 117, 127n.1, 186 Long, Edward: Babylonian Marriage Market 123 Lorenzetti, Pietro: Saint Sabinus before the Roman Governor of Tuscany (with workshop) 93

290 Louis-Philippe, King of France 129n.35, 131 Louvre, Paris 12, 43, 44 acquisition of paintings 86, 184, 190, 193n.17 purchase of imported Old Masters 25, 43, 44, 114n.29 attitude to reproduction of Old Master collection 191 display of collections 45 Galerie espagnole 131, 137 Lowengard, Armand 149, 154, 156 Lucas Collection 234, 239n.102 Lucas, Lady 23, 234 Ludwig, Bernhard 216 Luini, Bernardo 183 Christ among the Doctors 61, 62, 66n.29 Mackay, Clarence 203 Madrazo y Kuntz family of dealers 132–3, 136, 137, 143n.47 Maestro of the Castello Nativity: Portrait of a Woman (attrib.) 12 Magazine of Art 121, 121 La Maison Goupil see Goupil Manchester Guardian 18, 121 Manfrin Collection 86 Mantegna, Andrea Adoration of the Shepherds 57, 58 Holy Family 8–9 Saint Jerome 223n.39 Marchant, William 187 Marescalchi Sale 44 Marlborough Collection Sale 125 Marlborough Gallery, London 17, 17 Marshall Collection 122–3 Marziale, Marco The Circumcision 91 The Virgin and Child with Saints 91 Mason, George 128n.23 Master of the Augustine Legend: Scenes from the Life of Saint Augustine 170 Matsukata, Kojiiro 11 Matteo di Giovanni: Madonna and Child with Two Saints 169, 171, 175n.23 Matthiesen, Francis (Franz Zatzenstein) 204 Maurice Kann Collection 246

Index The Mauritshuis, The Hague 108, 133, 241 Mayer, Gus (Colnaghi) 204 Mazza, Damiano: The Rape of Ganymede 59, 62, 66n.29 Meadows Russell, Revd E. 166 medieval and early Renaissance paintings 6, 7, 8–9, 44, 161, 213 Melbourne 225–6, 228, 235n.1 Melbourne National Gallery collections 232 copies of Italian Renaissance and early modern European paintings 225, 226, 227, 228 European copies regarded as from ‘home’ 225, 226, 228, 230 modern British art 236n.32 sculpture casts 225, 226 Felton Bequest 226, 228, 230, 234 Adviser appointed 226, 235n.12 see also Rinder Committee and Trustees 226, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232 founding 225 Old Masters collection 226–7, 230, 232 criticized as inferior works 227, 230–1 cultural identity relationship 227, 230, 234 European market relationship 231, 232, 234 problems with display of paintings 231, 232 Sculpture Gallery 225, 226 Stawell Gallery 231, 231 Mellon, Andrew W. 9, 12, 23, 26, 154, 196, 197, 200, 202, 204–5, 232 Memling, Hans: Portrait of a Young Man 206n.12 Mendel, Sam 122, 123, 129n.46 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 12–13, 137, 152, 168, 169, 170, 177n.59, 198, 204 Metzger, Giovanni 47–8 Michaelis Collection 242, 243, 245–8, 251, 254n.33, 254n.36 Michaelis, Max 12, 242, 243, 245, 247, 248 private collection 247, 248, 255n.39, 255n.40 see also Michaelis Collection

Index Milesi, Achille Locatelli 7 Molteni, Giuseppe 90, 93 Mond Collection 168, 177n.59 Monet, Claude: Les glacons/La Seine a Bennecourt, hiver 108, 114n.34 Montaignac 21, 183, 193n.11 Montor, Artaud de: collection of Old Masters 44, 53n.51 Moreelse, Paulus: Portrait of a Four-Year Old Boy with a Club and Ball 247, 248 More, Jacob 57 Morelli, Giovanni 10, 90, 91 Moretto da Brescia: Portrait of a Man 93, 98n.54 Morgan, John Pierpoint 12, 23, 163, 164, 175n.22, 175n.23, 175n.24, 198 Moroni, Giovanni Battista: A Knight with His Jousting Helmet 93, 98n.54 Mostra dell’antica arte senese exhibition (1904), Siena 162, 164, 174n.14 Müller, Friedrich (Maler Müller) 63, 68n.60 Mündler, Otto 88, 95n.21 National Gallery relationship appointed as Travelling Agent 88, 93, 94, 96n.23 employed as an occasional agent 90, 91 objections to appointment and dismissal 89–90 travel diaries 88–9, 89 Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban 6, 106, 120, 123, 131, 140, 189 Don Andres de Andrade y la Cal 122, 129n.35 Holy Family 125 The Immaculate Conception 86, 114n.29, 131, 141n.9, 190, 226 Prodigal Son series 244 Virgin and Child (Virgen de la faja) 140, 146n.73 Murray, Charles Fairfax career as an agent and dealer 93, 161, 164

291

Douglas relationship 161–2 National Gallery relationship 3, 161, 164 specialist interest in Sienese School 93, 174n.11 Musée Central, Paris see Louvre Musée d’Orsay, Paris: database 4 Musée Napoléon, Paris see Louvre Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 170, 200 Museum of Modern Art, Belgrade 211, 213, 214, 222n.21 Museum of Painting and Sculpture, Belgium 88, 96n.27 museums in the market for Old Masters relationship with dealers and agents 3–4, 12–13, 24, 43–4, 47–8, 147 rise in nineteenth-century 12, 39, 43, 44, 47, 117 source of specialist expertise 22, 44 see also named museums; National Gallery Napoleonic Wars (1803–15) 24, 39, 42 effect on the market in Old Masters 1, 10, 42, 55, 69–70 see also Peninsular War Nardo di Cione: Coronation of the Virgin 175n.22 Národní Gallery, Prague 12 National Gallery, London 32n.52 acquisition of paintings at auctions and sales 59, 61, 66n.29, 123, 124, 126, 130n.49 see also named sales bequests 23, 129n.34, 168, 177n.59 agents, relationship with 25, 83–7, 88–93, 94, 95n.14, 161 criticized 86 diplomats used 83, 84 employment of occasional agents 90, 94, 97n.36 foreign museums and art galleries 88, 96n.27, 96n.28 scholars, connoisseurs and other experts used 84, 85, 90, 92–3 travelling agents’ role and duties 88, 90, 91, 95n.21, 96n.23, 96n.26

292

Index

see also Douglas; Gualandi; Mündler; Murray; Sacchi; Woodburn dealers, relationship with 83 acquisition of paintings 8, 67n.44, 83, 90, 93, 94 advice and other services 23, 24, 84, 90, 93 see also Agnew’s; Camuccini; Day; Duveen government involvement buys Angerstein Collection 59, 83–4 Lansdowne Amendment (1902) 164, 165 in management and approach 86, 87, 164–5 history artists used for authentication 84 opening and early history 12, 59, 83–7 original location 84 reconstitution and reorganization 87–8, 94 research materials correspondence 84–5, 85, 91, 92 dealers’ archives 4, 30n.23 Santa Croce Altarpiece (Ugolino di Nerio) 166, 175n.33, 175n.34, 176n.52 eight panels sold to Berlin by Douglas 166 proposal from Douglas to reconstruct 164, 165, 166 National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. 204, 205 National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin 171, 172, 247 Douglas relationship acquisition of paintings 168, 169, 172–3 concerns about 170, 171, 172 appointed as Director 26, 161, 168–70 charged with misconduct 171 resignation 171 revision of bye-laws 170–1 National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh see Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

national heritage and the market in Old Masters 10–11, 25, 166, 168, 177n.60, 177n.61 see also under Yugoslavia Netherlandish School 5, 6, 18, 24, 105, 149, 246 see also Dutch School; Flemish School Netherlands Institute for Art History 4 Netherlands market in Old Masters 3, 11, 24, 74, 77, 83 New Gallery, Regent Street, London 21 Nieuwenhuys, ‘John’ (Chrétien Jean, son of L. J. Nieuwenhuys) art dealer in London 74–5, 76, 80n.25, 81n.28 joins in dispute between father and Smith 74, 75, 76, 77, 79n.2, 80n.26, 81n.27 A Review of the Lives and Works of Some of the Most Eminent Painters 22, 75–6, 80n.26, 81n.27, 81n.28 Nieuwenhuys, Lambert Jan 70, 74, 135 as a dealer-collector 45, 74, 76–7 scholarship 75–6, 135 Smith relationship collaboration 70, 71, 74, 79n.2, 80n.19 falling out 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79n.2 ‘N.L.’: criticism of Old Masters purchased for Melbourne National Gallery 230–1 Northern School see Dutch School; Flemish School; Netherlandish School Northwick, Lord see Rushout, John Ocampo, Charles Vincent 105 O’Connor, James Arthur: The Devil’s Glen 170 Olcott, Lucy 174n.11 Old Masters acquired by looting during and after wars 1, 43, 131, 218 as ‘ancient art’ 5, 6, 25, 30n.30 as ‘Art Treasures’ 5, 6 as ‘primitives’ 5, 6 defined 1, 5, 6, 30n.25, 103, 192n.5

Index division into schools 6, 7, 102–3, 237n.51 drawings, growth in popularity of 103, 112n.6 female artists 6, 30n.33 forgeries 31n.49, 39–40, 124, 154, 159n.31 publications and ccatalogues raisonnés 22, 25 redistribution and attempts at restitution 1, 9–10, 11, 39, 43, 44, 52n.36 see also Old Masters and the art market Old Masters and the art market availability of paintings 9–10, 31n.49, 43 see also under London; Paris auctions; Rome changes in social profile of purchasers 11–13, 33n.65 comparison with the sale of modern works of art 14, 25, 102, 117, 127n.1 see also under Paris auctions connoisseurship, effect of 7, 19, 42, 105, 183 decline in 5, 55, 63, 218 development of 1, 2–3, 11, 12, 13, 26–7, 187 see also under American market; British market; French market; German market; Italian market historical events, effects of 1, 9–10, 39, 55, 63, 93 economic crises 1, 5, 9–10, 11, 153, 212–13, 218 see also under aristocrats; British market; Russian collections wars 1, 9, 131 see also First World War; Napoleonic Wars; Second World War international trade and heritage relationship 10–11, 25, 166, 168, 177n.60, 177n.61 minor works of art sold or destroyed 40–2, 50n.12, 65n.9 political and cultural implications 26–7, 44–5, 52n.36 see also under Melbourne National Gallery; South Africa; Yugoslavia

293

research materials 3–4, 39, 50n.7 see also under named dealers; National Gallery; Paris auctions scholarship, effect of 7–8, 9, 44, 75–6, 80n.7, 135, 161 sources of private collections 8, 11–12, 20, 44–5, 55, 57, 59 see also named collections removed from churches 55, 57–8 taste, changes in 4, 8, 23, 30n.25, 31n.49, 56, 164, 181, 187 see also under Paris auctions Orioli, Pietro di Francesco degli: Nativity with Saints from Four Scenes from the Life of Christ (prev. attrib. to Pacchiarotto) 165, 175n.24 Orlandi, Paolo 91 Orleans, Infante Antonio de 138, 145n.68 sale of family art collection 138–9, 140, 145n.64, 145n.65 Orléans Sale 10, 11, 20, 44 Orpen, William: Otto Beit in His Study in Belgrave Square 243, 243 Orsini-De Cavalieri Collection 66n.18 Ottley, William Young 64n.8, 162, 164 Otway, Arthur 89 Oudry, Alphonse 133, 142n.22 sale of collection 133, 134, 142n.24 Overstone, Lord 123 Pacchia: Madonna and Child (attrib.) 175n.24 Pacchiarotto, Jacopo (or Giacomo): Four Scenes from the Life of Christ (now attrib. to Orioli) 165, 175n.24 Page, John 3, 14, 111, 118, 121, 127n.1 Palazzo Grimani, Venice 16 Palma Il Vecchio 126 Holy Family with Saint John, Saint Catherine and a Donor 219, 220 Portrait of a Young Man 219 Virgin and Child with Saints (also attrib. to Giorgione) 86 Paris auctions and the sale of Old Masters

294

Index

changes in the market in nineteenth and early twentieth centuries attribution of paintings improved 103, 104–5, 112n.8 increase in sale of French paintings compared to other schools 103–4, 104, 112n.10 popularity of drawings increases 103, 112n.6 systematic references to specialist literature 105 taste, changes in 102, 104–6, 113n.13 use of term ‘École de 1830’ 107–8, 132 comparison with the sale of modern works of art 102, 103, 106–9, 107, 108, 114n.29, 132, 185–6 division of paintings into schools 102–3, 237n.51 growth in number of works sold 101, 102 nationality of buyers 110–11 research materials auctions minutes 115n.47 catalogues 101, 102, 102, 103, 105 Dataverse repository 102, 106, 111 procès-verbaux 101, 104, 110, 113n.26 risk premiums 105, 107, 113n.15 Spanish Old Masters 131, 132, 190 use of ‘Old Master’ category 102, 103, 112n.5 Yugoslavian collectors 221n.2 Paul, Prince Regent of Yugoslavia (Pavle Karađorđević) 24, 26, 211, 212, 221, 222n.4 collector of Old Masters 212, 213, 214, 223n.27, 223n.39 creation of state museums Museum of Modern Art, Belgrade 214, 222n.21 State Art Collection, Belgrade 26, 212, 213, 215–16, 223n.27 Joseph Duveen relationship correspondence 212–13 friendship 26, 211, 212–13, 217, 221n.2

meetings in London, Belgrade and Slovenia 212 State and personal collections involvement gifts of paintings 213–14 help and advice 213, 215, 216–17, 218–19, 222n.14 loan of paintings 213–14, 217, 218 political implications 26, 214–15, 216, 217, 222n.11 suggests decoration in gratitude for services 214 Payson, Joan Whitney 12 Peacock, Michael 71, 73 Peacock’s Gallery, London 11 Peel, Sir Robert 80n.19 Peninsular War (1807–14) 131 Pérignon family 110 Perkins, Frederick Mason 162, 165, 174n.11 Peruzzi, Baldassarre: The Adoration of the Kings (engraving by Giralomo da Treviso) 47 Pesellino: Madonna and Child with Six Saints 12 Petit, Francis 110 Petit, Georges 109, 110, 186 Petty-Fitzmaurice, Henry, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, Trustee of the National Gallery 124–5, 164 Phillips (auction house), London 119, 121 Phillips, Florence 243, 245, 249 Phillips, Lionel 242, 243 Phillips, Sir Claude 167, 246 Piero di Cosimo: The Forest Fire 213, 222n.12 Pillet-Will, Frédéric 110 Pim, Howard 249, 250, 251, 256n.63, 256n.64 Richard Gutekunst as dealer (by post) 249, 250–1, 255n.47, 255n.50, 255n.57, 255n.59 Pius VII, Pope 62, 63, 68n.51 Pius VI, Pope 62, 68n.51 Pommereul, Baron de 135 sale of collection 143n.31 Pond, Arthur 2 Portabella, Eduardo 138, 145n.60

Index Potter, Paulus 105 Paysages et animaux 113n.21 Riche pâturage 113n.21 Pourtalés-Gorgier Sale 10, 74, 80n.14 Poussin, Nicolas 105, 218 Birth of Bacchus (The Infant Bacchus Entrusted to the Nymphs of Nysa) 105, 106 Landscape with Three Monks (La Solitude) 218–19, 219 Le mariage ... 113n.22 Pownall, George Hyde 228 Poynter, Sir Edward, Director of National Gallery 163, 164, 165 Prevost, Zachée 190 prints and the market in Old Masters 45, 249, 250, 251 see also under Goupil; Pim public museums see museums Pye, Thomas 64n.8 Quinto Sale 131 Raczyński Collection 44 Ramenghi, Bartolomeo (Bagnacavallo): Madonna with Saints Alo and Petronius 41 Raphael 160n.42, 183, 204 An Allegory (‘Vision of a Knight’) 84, 95n.7 Ansidei Madonna 125 Garvagh Madonna (The Madonna and Child with the Infant Baptist) 57, 59, 60, 66n.29, 68n.47 Holy Family (known as La Perla) 189 Madonna of the Pinks 1, 67n.44 Saint Catherine of Alexandria 59, 62–3, 66n.29 Sistine Madonna 189 Redgrave, Richard and Samuel 97n.48, 119 Reghellini, Marziale 48, 53n.66 Reinach, Théodore 105–6 Rembrandt van Rijn 6, 7, 128n.23, 183 biography by John Nieuwenhuys 75–6 engravings of works of art 190, 190–1, 249, 250, 251 works Burgomaster Six 126 Head of a Man 183

295

Isaac and Rebecca 21, 77, 81n.40 Jean Pellicorne with His Son Caspar 76, 81n.33 L’Homme à l’armature 183, 193n.11 Man in Oriental Costume (prev. known as The Turk) 204 The Mill 9, 9 The Night Watch (engraving) 190, 190–1 Portrait of a Lady Holding a Glove (attrib.) 246, 247 Portrait of a Young Artist 187 Portrait of Joris Coulery 188 Quintus Fabius Maximus 218 Saul and David 133 Self-Portrait 174n.10 Self-Portrait (Ilchester Portrait) 198, 198–9, 206n.18 Susanna van Collen, Wife of Jean Pellicorne with her daughter, Anna 76, 81n.33 The Three Crosses (engraving) 249, 250 The Toilet of Bathsheba (‘Steengracht Rembrandt’) 109, 109, 114n.35, 152 Wife of Burgomaster Six (now attrib. to follower of) 126 Young Man with a Cleft Chin (attrib.) 12 Renaissance paintings 225, 226, 227, 228 see also medieval and early Renaissance paintings Reni, Guido Mary Magdalene 67n.40 Saint Peter (prev. known as Saint Jerome) 67n.40 Susannah and the Elders 84 Reynolds, Sir Joshua 6, 84, 119, 120, 128n.23, 202 Miss Crewe 128n.17 Miss Meyer as ‘Hebe’ 119 Riano y Montera, Juan F. 92, 93 Ribera, Jusepe de 140 Saint John the Baptist 133–4, 143n.35 Ribot, Théodule 111 Riccardi, Giuseppe 53n.66 Richter, Jean-Paul 93

296

Index

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 77, 81n.40, 154, 231–2, 241 Rinder, Frank 226 appointed Felton Bequest Adviser 226–7, 230 Old Masters acquisitions 227, 228, 230 criticized for choice of paintings 227, 230–1, 234 interest in Dutch School 230 misses or avoids major works 232 policy 227, 228–9, 230–1, 237n.51 resignation 227, 234 Rinuccini Collection 84 Robert, Hubert 111, 115n.48 Robinson, Joseph 242 Rochard, François-Théodore 80n.11 Rodolphe Kann Collection 150, 151 Rome and the market in Old Masters availability of paintings 55, 56, 57, 63, 64n.8 dealers 55, 56, 57, 64n.8 see also Camuccini, Pietro; Day export of paintings to England 55, 58–9, 61–3, 66n.28 fall in prices due to historical events 55, 63 Romney, George 6, 22, 31n.45, 119 Girl with Flowers 128n.17 Rosenberg, Paul 110 de Rothschild, Alfred, Trustee of the National Gallery 164–5 Rothschild family 123, 125, 128n.21, 135, 140 de Rothschild, Lionel 119, 123 Roworth, Edward, Director of South African National Gallery 242 Royal Academy of Arts, London 32n.52, 117 exhibitions 20–1, 119–20, 125, 128n.23, 219 Royal Palace, Dedinje, Belgrade 215, 215, 216 Duveen loans Old Masters 217 interior 216, 216 royalty as collectors of Old Masters 11–12, 47, 129n.35, 131, 132, 136–7, 203 see also Paul, Prince Regent Roybet, Ferdinand 111

Rubens, Peter Paul 6, 106 Isabella Brant (now attrib. Van Dyck) 204 Le chapeau de paille 74, 80n.19, 80n.21 Lot and his Daughters 1 The Triumph of Religion 128n.23 Rushout, John, Lord Northwick 62, 66n.17, 68n.48 Russian collections of Old Masters 11, 71, 203 sales due to economic crises 203–4, 208n.40, 208n.42 Rutter, Edward 92 Sacchi, Federico 91 National Gallery relationship administers library 91–2 book of expenses 92, 92 diary 92 employed as an unofficial agent 91, 92, 97n.46 Salamanca Sales 106, 113n.26, 132, 141n.11, 143n.33 salesrooms see galleries Salting, George 12 Salviati Collection 66n.18 Sano, Bénédict-Emmanuel 105 Sano di Pietro Christ Carrying the Cross 172, 172–3, 177n.79 Virgin and Child 175n.24 Sanquirico, Antonio and Carlo 16, 45 gallery in Venice 16, 45, 51n.28 Santa Croce Altarpiece see Ugolino di Nerio Santi, Giovanni: Virgin and Child 90 Schiavone, Andrea: Triumphal Procession with Prisoners 213–14, 222n.17, 222n.18 Schroth, Claude 110 Scott & Knowles 199, 206n.12, 206n.19 Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh 168, 169, 171 Second World War (1939–45): effect on the market in Old Masters 1, 26, 218, 221, 223n.39 Secrétan Sale 21, 183 Sedelmeyer, Charles 105 move into Old Masters market 14, 15, 110

Index Spanish paintings 134 partnerships 21, 183 salesroom 15 Sée, Robert René Meyer 17 see also Marlborough Gallery Seguier, John 84 Seguier, William, Keeper of the National Gallery 84 Settled Land Acts (1882–90) 93, 117, 124 Shirleys, Paris 16, 16–17 showrooms see galleries Shuvalov Collection 203 Sienese School 89, 93, 162, 163–4, 165, 169, 172, 174n.11 see also under Douglas Signorelli, Luca: Circumcision 130n.49 Silvestro dei Gherarducci: The Assumption of Saint Mary Magdalene (prev. attrib. to Taddeo di Bartolo) 171, 172 Simon, Eduard 150 Simonetti, Attilio 18 Slade, Thomas Moore 14, 20 Smith, John biographical details 73 author 22, 70, 71, 79n.4, 79n.5, 80n.7 carver, gilder and frame-maker 24, 69 dealer in paintings 69–70 portrait by Haughton 69 travels abroad 71 Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters 22, 70, 71, 75, 79n.4, 79n.5, 80n.7, 80n.26, 81n.27, 81n.29, 105 research materials correspondence 3, 39, 70, 73, 75, 77, 79n.2, 82n.46 Day Book 71 selling and business methods alliances, partnerships and collaborations 21, 70, 71, 71–4, 77, 80n.14 see also Brondgeest; Gunn; Nieuwenhuys clients 23, 73, 77

297

gallery on Bond Street, London 17, 70, 73 networks, use of 24, 70–2, 73, 77, 78, 80n.9 uses publication to attract potential clients 70 specialist in Netherlandish art 18, 24, 69, 135 Smith, John Mountjoy (son of John Smith) 73, 75, 78, 82n.48 Smith, Samuel Mountjoy (son of John Smith) 78, 82n.48 Smith, William Mountjoy (son of John Smith) 78, 81n.43 Solario, Antonio da 8 A Man with a Pink 93 Solly, Edward collection of Old Masters 44, 47, 50n.7 as a collector-dealer 45 Sotheby’s (auction house) 30n.33, 121 Soult, Marshal Nicolas-Jean-de-Dieu 86 sale of collection 10, 86, 114n.29, 190 South Africa Afrikaners 241, 245 Dutch settlers 27, 241 gold and diamond mining 242, 244 political background 27, 241, 252n.4 the Randlords 27, 242–3, 244–5, 248, 251, 253n.16 South Africa in the market for Old Masters colonial past, effect of 11, 26, 241, 244, 252 compared to the market in modern art 243 Dutch and Flemish School paintings bought by dealers and re-sold in Europe 242, 253n.14 cultural identity relationship 244, 245, 251, 252 imported and not collected by Dutch settlers 12, 27, 241, 242, 251, 252n.1 in public and private collections 241–2, 243, 244, 247, 248, 252n.9, 255n.39, 255n.40 see also Michaelis Collection history of 3, 11, 12, 26, 27 print trade 249, 250, 251 see also Pim

298

Index

the Randlords and Old Masters 242–3, 244, 248, 251 South African National Gallery, Cape Town 242, 248, 253n.13 South Kensington Museum, London 92 see also Victoria and Albert Museum Spanish market in Old Masters 11, 25, 131, 132, 135 Spanish School 6, 122 Spence, William Blundell 16, 95n.14 Spielmann, Marion Henry 121 Spruyt, Charles 77 State Art Collection, Belgrade 26, 211–12, 213, 215, 215–16, 217, 218–19, 221, 223n.39 Steengracht van Duivenvoord, Jonkeer Hendricus Adolphus: sale of collection 108, 109 Steen, Jan: As the Singing Leads, So the Dancing Follows (The Dancing Dog) 247, 247, 254n.36 Stevens, Alfred 142n.20 Stevens, Arthur 111 Streeton, Arthur 231 Stroganov Collection 203, 204 Strossmayer, Bishop Jusip Jurai 8 Sulley, Arthur J. (Lawrie & Company) 197, 200 Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, George Granville 78 Tabourier Sale 183 Taddeo di Bartolo: Assumption of Saint Mary Magdalene (now attrib. to Gherarducci) 171, 171, 172 Teniers, David, the Younger 105, 108, 188 La lecture de la gazette 113n.20 Le Fumeur rose 188, 194n.32 The Temptation of St Anthony 105, 113n.20 Thoré-Bürger, Théophile 8 Thos. Agnew and Sons see Agnew’s The Times 18, 121 Tintoretto, Jacopo: Origin of the Milky Way 125, 130n.55 Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) 120, 204

Bacchus and Ariadne 57, 66n.25, 67n.44 Herodias 67n.40 The Rape of Ganymede (now attrib. to Mazza) 59, 62 The Tribute Money 86, 87 Venus and Adonis (attrib. to workshop of) 59, 62, 66n.29, 200, 201 Tito, President of Yugoslavia 212, 215 Tooth (Arthur Tooth & Son) buying and selling 118 ‘Early English’ art 119 international trade 32n.63 Old Masters 187 at Paris auctions 111 private contract sales 20 research materials 4, 20 Torlonia, Giovanni 21, 59, 62, 66n.17, 67n.36 Tresham, Henry 59, 67n.30 Trollope, Anthony: South Africa 242, 253n.15 Trotti & Co 111, 145n.63, 202, 206n.12, 254n.36 Truchsess-Zeyl-Wurzach Sale 44 Trumble, Alfred 187, 188 Turner, J. M. W. 23, 119, 128n.21 Mortlake Terrace 200, 201 Walton Bridges 231, 238n.80 Udny, John 64n.8 Uffizi Gallery, Florence 12 Ugolino di Nerio: Santa Croce Altarpiece panels 165, 166, 167, 176n.44, 176n.51 Bode buys panels from Douglas 165, 166, 168, 176n.42 in possession of National Gallery 166, 175n.33, 175n.34, 176n.52 in private collections 162, 164, 165, 166, 176n.52 proposed reconstruction by Douglas 164, 165, 166 United States market in Old Masters see American market Uwins, Thomas, Keeper of the National Gallery 86 Valadon, René 185 Valenti-Gonzaga Collection 66n.18

Index Valentiner, W. R. 157n.3, 159n.36 Van der Hoop, Adriaan 21, 77, 81n.40 Van der Neer, Aert 115n.48 Van de Velde, Adriaen 105 Un cheval blanc dans une prairie avec deux vaches 113n.21 Van Dyck, Anthony 189, 202, 204, 207n.28 Equestrian Portrait of Charles I 125 Isabella Brant (prev. attrib. to Rubens) 204 Isabella, Lady de la Warr 188, 189, 194n.34 Johannes Baptista Franck 77, 81n.40 Marchesa Balbi 12 Portrait of a Man 188, 194n.34 Portraits of Two Young Englishmen (style of) 234, 239n.102 Rachel de Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton 232–4, 233 Van Eyck, Jan 204, 229 Van Gogh, Theo 183 Van Goyen, Jan 115n.48, 183 Van Hinsbergh, E. 111 Van Isaker, A. 111 Van Ostade, Adriaen 78, 115n.48 Van Parys, Mathieu-Antoine 48 sales leaflet 48 Van Riebeeck, Jan 241 portrait by unknown artist 253n.10 Van Ruisdael, Jacob 115n.48, 183 Van Winter Collection, Amsterdam 74 Vasari, Giorgio 6 Veil-Picard, Arthur-Georges 105 Velázquez, Diego 6, 7, 106, 131, 140 Don Baltasar Carlos with a Dwarf 200 King Philip IV of Spain 199, 199–200, 206n.19 Pope Innocent X 204 Portrait of Mariana de Austria, Queen of Spain (now attrib. to workshop of) 134, 142n.25, 143n.35 Rokeby Venus 168, 177n.60 Venetian School 7, 8, 86 Venice 16, 40, 42, 45, 50n.12, 89, 168 see also Venetian School Venturi, Adolfo: Storia dell’Arte Italiana 8 Vermeer, Jan 8, 234

299

Girl with the Red Hat 232 The Smiling Girl (now regarded as a forgery) 154–5, 155 Woman Holding a Balance 200 Vernon Collection 128n.21 Veronese, Paolo 47 The Abduction of Europa (now. attrib. to Caliari) 219, 223n.38 The Family of Darius before Alexander 89, 90 Happy Union 125, 130n.55 Scorn 125, 130n.55 Unfaithfulness 125, 130n.55 The Wedding at Cana 190 Victoria and Albert Museum, London 92, 225, 231 see also South Kensington Museum Vienna 42, 44, 71, 221n.2 VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) see Dutch East India Company Von Dessin, Joachim Nikolaus 242 collections 242, 253n.13 Waagen, Gustav: Treasures of Art in Great Britain 13, 55 Wagner, Henry 166, 176n.52 Walker, Frederick 128n.23 Wallis & Sons 183, 197 Walters, William 195 Waltner, Charles-Albert: engraving of La Ronde de Nuit (De Nachtwacht) (after Rembrandt) 190, 190–1 Wantage, Lord 126 Waterhouse, Ellis 30n.23 Watson, David 196 Watteau, Antoine 109, 183 Fête Champêtre 124 Portrait d’Angelo Constantini dit le Mezzetin 105, 113n.24 Weck, Hermann 111 Weiß, Gaspare: as a dealer-collector 45, 51n.28 Wells Sale 121 Wernher, Julius 242 Westgarth, Mark 4, 14, 17 Wicht, Joseph and Josephine 136, 143n.45, 144n.49

300

Index

Widener, Peter A. B. 9, 26, 197, 200, 202, 206n.12, 207n.28 Wildenstein, Nathan 109, 110, 111 Williams, Charles Romer (Agnew’s) 199, 200, 206n.19 Wilson, Richard 128n.20, 128n.23 Wilson, T. W.: ‘A Sale at Christie’s’ from Magazine of Art 121 Windmill Hill Archive, Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire 4 Windsor-Clive, Robert George, Lord Windsor (later Lord Plymouth) 124, 130n.49 Winstanley Sale 128n.20 Wocher, Marquard 46–7 Woodburn, Samuel and William act as agents for National Gallery 164 advise on authenticity 84, 86, 87, 95n.7, 95n.10 conditions of employment 84, 85, 85–6 criticized 86–7 source potential new acquisitions 84, 85, 86 professional services offered to clients 23 Wood, T. Martin: catalogue of Michaelis Collection 242, 245–6 Wornum, Ralph Nicholson (Keeper and Secretary of the National Gallery) 88, 92 Wouwerman, Philips 105 Le Chasseur 113n.19 Scènes de pillage 113n.19 Un Camp 113n.18

The Year’s Art periodical 123 Yerkes Collection 188 Young Collection 197 Yriarte, Charles: Goya 132, 134, 135 Yugoslavia art market contemporary art market 218, 221n.2 curtailed due to financial problems 211, 214, 216 Old Masters 24, 26, 211, 216, 221n.2 creation of new Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1929) 212, 214, 215, 218, 221 importance of national cultural heritage 212, 217, 218, 221, 222n.3 Joseph Duveen relationship see under Paul, Prince Regent Russia relationship 215 see also Museum of Modern Art, Belgrade; State Art Collection, Belgrade Zabala Y Guzmán, Juan de, 14th Duke of Nájera and Earl of Paredes de Nava 136 Zagreb Gallery, Croatia 8 Zamacoïs, Miguel 184, 192n.6, 193n.16 Zanetti, Vittore 118, 119, 128n.20 Zatzenstein, Franz (Francis Matthiesen) 204 Zurbarán, Francisco 145n.66 Saint Francis in Meditation 122, 129n.34