The first half of the nineteenth century in Britain saw a quiet, though significant, swell of interest in paintings of the earlier Italian, German, and Netherlandish schools. Concentrating on the period between c. 1800 and c. 1853 in Britain, this thesis examines the roles and practices of art dealers and agents in these first murmurings of interest in early European paintings; paintings which, since, have come to characterise the pre-1500 holdings of the National Gallery, London and the Bowes Museum, County Durham – the institutional partners of this Collaborative Doctoral Partnership PhD. Drawing from the possibilities provided by studies of the art market, this thesis complicates more conventional consumer- or institution-focused readings of the shift in taste towards early pictures. By redressing the historic marginalisation of dealers and agents – who are often maligned as perceptibly spurious protagonists marred by commerce – this thesis instead proposes that they constitute vital and complex cultural actors and tastemakers. Significantly, this thesis also highlights the British – rather than the Continental – context, and additionally focuses on decades which are usually discounted in reception histories of early paintings in favour of the mid- to late nineteenth century.
Arranged chronologically and thematically across four chapters, the thesis brings the collections and archival holdings of the National Gallery and the Bowes Museum into new dialogue with overlooked or little-known archival material in the UK and Europe. The opening chapter examines the hybrid, antiquarian market for early pictures, investigating how a spectrum of print and book sellers, and art, antique, and curiosity dealers in London directly affected the consumption and study of such paintings among British antiquaries. Out of this multifaceted marketplace, the thesis moves to examine the emergence of the ‘picture dealer’, shedding light on the increasingly stratified and responsive techniques which were used to market and sell early pictures. The final two chapters interrogate key aspects of these stratifying practices: the expansion and concretisation of efficient networks between dealers and agents, which directly affected shifting patterns in picture collecting, and the role of the dealer as exhibition maker – curating didactic displays of early paintings in line with, and sometimes prefiguring, contemporary museum practice. From shopkeepers to scholars, agents to advisors, network creators to exhibition makers, this thesis highlights the breadth and complexity of the roles and practices of dealers and agents in relation to early pictures, during a period in which approaches to art history, the public art museum, and the very idea of ‘the dealer’ as a professional category, were developing in Britain.
