Andrea M. Gáldy

Adriana Turpin

Susan Bracken

If collecting the rare and valuable is an entirely normal trait of human behaviour, amassing objects from far-away places has also long played a role in the history of collecting. “East” and “West”, or “North” and “South”, for that matter, are of course entirely relative to one’s particular geographical position. Therefore, it is interesting that collecting exotic objects is an endeavour that unites humanity over millennia and round the globe. The ancient Assyrians did so as assiduously as eighteenth-century collectors in Paris or London; Chinese emperors collected Western art and artefacts at a time when Western collectors started to gather ceramics, lacquered furniture, or South-East Asian prints. Key factors were, of course, increasingly frequent contact and an ever growing knowledge about the “other” and about the other’s artistic production. Of particular interest to the mission of this working group is the fact that the building of collections was only part of the endeavour but that, in many cases, the objects imported at huge cost and logistic effort were meant to be displayed in surroundings reminiscent of their original habitat, even though their exact original context may have been open to debate and their final exhibition surroundings may have been unrecognisable to anyone from their former home. Western collectors built Chinese cabinets for their exotic treasures, often complemented by depictions of Oriental tea parties. Less familiar is perhaps the fact that, from the seventeenth century onwards, Chinese emperors displayed their European collectibles in palaces built for them for this purpose in Western architectural style. The essays in the present volume, therefore, attempt to connect the collections of exotic objects with the forms of display adopted by collectors and institutions and thus chart the levels of increasingly informed and intimate encounters between East and West, scholars and collectors, art lovers and institutions from the early first millennium BC to the early twentieth century and from South-East Asia to North-Western Europe.

Collecting East and West

Collecting is an obsession that goes back to the mists of history. While spare time and spare cash seem an absolute necessity for this kind of activity, every collector has his or her own approach to the formation of a collection. The way in which one’s treasures are displayed is another important instance in which one collector differs from another. Glass cases, niches, trays, cupboards, or drawers have been adopted; sometimes cards offer information on the subject, its age and provenance; an overall theme may have prompted the choice of the actual objects displayed together; security reasons suggest one room over another. While some collectors keep their treasures as close as possible—in their bedroom, throughout their living quarters, or in a locked up closet nearby—others may find that they want to be able to show off their collection without being disturbed by visitors in the rooms in which they actually spend most of their time. Certainly, our notions of private and public have changed considerably over the centuries and this has had an impact on questions of display and on the separation of particular parts of the house from other less accessible ones, in particular in great houses that allow for the establishment of a museum. The museum, in such cases, is quite separate from the living quarters, for example situated on the ground floor off the main hall. Not all displays were so defined; there were many forms of exhibition just as there were many forms of collections. The aims and ambitions of the collector are often discussed in terms of the display of their collections; in part because we believe that analysing how a collection was shown and how it was received are key contributors to our understanding the role and purpose of the collection. In lieu of any other documentation, inventories, sales catalogues and wills remain essential tools for the historian of collecting, both in terms of what was owned and where it was housed. This volume, the second in a series of four, presents ten articles that explore the connection between collections and their display in, near, or separate from the princely apartment within a time frame that runs from the sixteenth century to the early nineteenth and within a geographical area that includes courts on the Italian peninsula, in England, France, The Netherlands and Germany.

Collecting and the Princely Apartment

Art Markets, Agents and Collectors brings together a wide variety of case studies, based on letters and detailed archival research, which nuance the history of the art market and the role of the collector within it. Using diaries, account books and other archival sources, the contributions to this volume show how agents set up networks and acquired works of art, often developing the taste and knowledge of the collectors for whom they were working. They are therefore seen as important actors in the market, having a specific role that separates them from auctioneers, dealers, museum curators or amateurs, while at the same time acknowledging and analyzing the dual positions that many held. Each chronological period is introduced by a contextual essay, written by a leading expert in the field, which sets out the art market in the period concerned and the ways in which agents functioned. This book is an invaluable tool for those needing a broader introduction to the intricate workings of the art market.

Susan Bracken

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