S. Avery-Quash and C. Huemer (edited by), London and the Emergence of a European Art Market, 1780-1820. Part One

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London and the Emergence of a European Art Market, 1780-1820

Edited by Susanna Avery-Quash e Christian Huemer
Los Angeles, The Getty Research Institute, 2019

Review by Giovanni Mazzaferro. Part One

The Getty Provenance Index^©

Some preliminary information may be useful to the reader. This volume includes the proceedings of the homonymous conference held at the National Gallery in London between 21 and 22 June 2013.  Some further contributions have however been added to provide a more complete picture. Moreover, the conference was just one of the highlights of a long-standing collaboration between the Getty Research Institute and the National Gallery, two institutions particularly interested in researching the formation and, above all, the origins of the relative collections. Finally, the real protagonist of the volume is the Getty Provenance Index^©. Let us spend a few words on it. The Getty Provenance Index^© is a key digital  tool (https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/provenance/search.html) which allows scholars to consult an extensive series of documents including archive inventories, auction sales catalogues, registers of commercial operators in the arts, payments to artists and descriptions of museum public collections. The database is being constantly updated (for example, very recently data about 6,000 publications relating to the German auctions held between 1900 and 1945 have been included in the section dedicated to sales catalogues).

Precisely basing itself on the Getty Provenance Index^©, the work aimed at deepening the understanding of a known phenomenon, on which however much still needs to be written about: The replacement of Paris with London in the years between 1780 and 1820 as the 'capital' of the art trade in Europe. This was clearly a consequence of the historical events of the time, and in particular of the outbreak of the French Revolution (1789), of the convulsive years culminating in the Terror, of Napoleon's rise to power, of his triumph and, finally, of his fall. All this - it is good to remember - happened in substantial coincidence with other events such as the requisition of works of art by the French armies, the creation of the Louvre and its transformation into the Musée Napoléon (1802) and the (partial) recovery of the works stolen after restoration.

The really enriching aspect of the conference (and therefore also of the volume) is the tangible demonstration that the examination of the data contained in the Getty Provenance Index^© may indeed lead to a multiplicity of diverse analytical approaches. To have an order of magnitude, the counting of the sales catalogues has led to the registration of almost 250 thousand  items, which were auctioned between 1680 and 1800. Of them, over 100 thousand were sold during the twenty years 1780-1800. Quantitative surveys (working on such large datasets) can therefore be combined with others more qualitative approaches (e.g. traditionally examining the development of individual collections or the work of intermediaries involved in the business).

Precisely for this reason the volume was divided into three sections: ‘Models’, ‘Collections’, ‘Intermediaries’. By and large, I will stick to this structure in illustrating the contents. A final caveat is necessary: ​​Is it really possible to establish precisely what was the portion of sales processed though auctions in Europe compared to the overall trade in artistic artefacts? The issue is very complex. In this regard, the volume quotes a research by Guido Guerzoni (which I was not able to read yet) according to which, in the period under consideration, auction sales may have represented roughly 20%-25% of total turnover [1]. Some aspects, however, are not clear to me. Did this (already very substantial) share also include the so-called 'private contract' sales which were 'invented' by Noël Desenfans in 1786? The latter were highly successful in the following years (think of the dispersion of the Orléans Collection, considered the event that symbolically delivered to London the sceptre of 'queen of the European market'). Prima facie, it would seem they did not. If this is the case, it is clear that the percentage of transactions surveyed by the Getty Provenance Index^© is even more consistent, and therefore even more representative of reality.

Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun, Self-Portrait, 1795, private collection
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jean-Baptiste-Pierre_Le_Brun_1796.jpg

Index of Part I - Models

• Neil De Marchi, Introduction to Part One;
• Peter Carpreau, English and French Auctions in a Troubled Period, 1780-1820. A Quantitative Analysis of Volume, Price, and Taste Based on the Getty Provenance Index^© Databases;
• 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?;
• Hans J. van Miegroet, Hilary Cronheim, Bénédicte Miyamoto, International Dealer Networks and Triangular Art Trade Between Paris, Amsterdam, and London;
• Guido Guerzoni, The Export of Works of Art from Italy to the United Kingdom, 1792-1830;
• Olivier Bonfait, The Taste for Eighteenth-Century French Paintings. Internazionalitation and Homogenization of Demand on the London Art Market around 1800.

The index of normalized prices

The section dedicated to 'Models' is undoubtedly the most intriguing, in terms of innovation. It shows how socio-economic models can help interpret facts and grasp reality, if combined with the consultation of the Big Data of the Getty Provenance Index^©. Of course we do not pretend to explain everything with figures; however (while sometimes the contradictions between one contribution and another are evident) the research paths are obviously very interesting, as the research on the economic facets of art largely prevails over the purely stylistic aspects.

Peter Carpreau’s avenue seems particularly striking to me. Carpreau took into consideration the auctions held in France and England between 1780 and 1820; he highlighted their progress in volumes and prices (those in France dropped drastically in the revolutionary period, but showed a recovery in the second decade of the nineteenth century); above all, he tried to investigate the level of sales prices (very often available in the Getty Provenance Index^©), using the concept of 'normalized price'. What is a "normalized price"? A comparable price in different geographical and institutional frameworks because it is not affected by inflationary phenomena, but also by aspects such as different developments in term of real growth and so on.

To obtain this, Carpreau considered the list of prices at which the works were awarded and calculated not the arithmetic average, but the median, or the intermediate value of the auction prices. In fact,he explained that averages are not very reliable for at least two reasons: the auction prices were not distributed according to a 'normal curve', because below a certain level the works were withdrawn from the auction and were not awarded; moreover, the arithmetic mean, statistically, was too influenced by the tales, and in particular by extreme high values in this case. He then transformed the median expressed in local currency into gold (which he considered an asset with a less fluctuating value). Then he divided each auction price (expressed in gold) precisely with the median of the prices contained in the database, also converted into gold. The resulting value is a normalized price, which Carpreau considers the true “price of taste", because it would only express the evolution of taste on individual markets. I am not entirely sure - I will be sincere - that taste is really the only element that affected this value; I am thinking, for example, that the price level could be artificially affected by speculative upward pressures due to the specific behavioural dynamics on the demand side during the bidding (or, on the contrary, to cartel agreements on the supply side to limit prices) [2].

The results (to be considered with the benefit of the doubt [3]) are that in the last twenty years of the eighteenth century the average level of 'normalized' price were constantly higher in France than in England (curiously with a peak in 1795), while in the first twenties of the nineteenth century the outcome was completely reversed to the advantage of price levels in the English markets. As far as business volumes are concerned, the "turnover" in France was severely affected already at a much earlier date, so that the English predominance became evident as from 1785, while France was able to partially catch-up only from 1810 onwards.

Thomas Gainsborough, Portrait of James Christie, 1778, Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum
Source: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty's Open Conten Program

Debunking a common place

The handover in the artistic market dominance between Paris and London was symbolically represented by the dispersion of the Orléans collection, which took place in two stages, i.e. in 1793 (for northern European artworks) and 1798 (for Italian paintings). However, these events, and in particular the second sale, were attributed an additional and questionable reading. William Buchanan (1777-1864), for example, in his Memoirs of Painting: With a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution (London, 1824) argued that nothing, after the dispersion of the collection Orléans, could ever remain intact in the future: The world of English collectors, in fact, had discovered the Ancient Italian Masters at the expense of the schools of Northern Europe. As an art dealer Buchanan had a conflict of interest. In fact, he did not hesitate to attribute himself, at least in part, the origin of this turning point in taste. Crucially, he was also a convinced neoclassicist, and he read the change of British aesthetic preferences as a form of artistic progress, with the alignment with the canons of beauty that had already conquered all of Europe. One of Bénédicte Miyamoto's aims was to understand, on the basis of the quantitative analysis of data, whether a discontinuity of this kind really existed; that is, whether changes in the European artistic taste really had such a sudden and effective influenced on the Anglo-Saxon public. The result is clear-cut: it was not so. Examining the sales data between 1767-1789 and 1790-1800 it is clear that the deviations were minimal: indeed, Dutch and Italian art (which already had a predominant cumulative position, with almost 60% of the paintings sold) both fell slightly to advantage of Flemish, French, German and Spanish production; but, I would like to stress it again, the differences were, in percentage terms, really insignificant. Moreover, also the distribution of works by genre remained (almost) unchanged (although it may be difficult to assign works to genres on the simple basis of titles of paintings that have been destroyed or lost), with a clear predominance of landscape over history painting (Italian painting was especially associated to the latter, which represented around one third of the full production). Miyamoto's conclusions were that, in the years of the dispersion of the Orléans collection, the London art market was "mature": market participants had already had the opportunity to fully unfold their preferences, which would be widely confirmed later.

Claude Lorrain, Landscape with Hagar and the Angel, 1646, London, The National Gallery
Source: The National Gallery, Creative Commons Agreement

Grasping the integration of markets

Was there a "globalization" of the art markets at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? The question is far from trivial, especially considering the war events that overwhelmed Europe in the years from the French Revolution to the Restoration. If this globalization existed, to what extent were the markets homogeneous? In essence, the essays by Hans J. van Miegroet, Hilary Cronheim and Bénédicte Miyamoto on one side and Olivier Bonfait on the other were dedicated to this theme. It is beyond dispute that, starting in the mid-eighteenth century, some merchants were systematically buying Dutch paintings at low prices in Amsterdam, and then selling them at a higher price, at first only in Paris and, later on, also in London. The authors of International Dealer Networks and Triangular Art Trade elaborated data relating to the Amsterdam market and noted that prices had remained substantially stable during the second eighteenth century: The Dutch market was structurally favouring buyers, and between them, those whose business model was to sell at higher prices elsewhere. Against this, the same works resold in Paris, from 1745 onwards, had there higher prices.

Among the operators commuting between Amsterdam and Paris (and later London) I would like to mention Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun (1748-1813), who in 1802 wrote he had been in Holland at least forty times just to purchase a portfolio of paintings. Lebrun turned out to be a fundamental figure for at least two reasons: the first is that he perfected in Paris mercantile practices linked to auction sales such as the insertion of newspaper advertisements and the drafting of ever more exhaustive catalogues, in which he did not simply listed works, but described them and indicated their origin (it is proven that indicating a painting as of Dutch school was making it much more likely to sell at a higher price); the second is that Lebrun was the first to test the London market and to introduce such "good practices" in London, also thanks to the collaboration of a new generation of "self-made men" who were approaching the profession. One of these was Noël-Jospeh Desenfans (1744-1807) who became an agent by chance and without any particular knowledge in the arts, but knew how to build a solid professional reputation over the decades. The role of the merchant, especially in the last two decades of the eighteenth century, required a preparation combining commercial practices and a specific stylistic knowledge: connoisseurship was the natural result of this type of requirement.

If the Dutch, French and English markets proved to be interrelated (and one of the aspects that most demonstrated was the birth of a real 'calendar' of auctions, without overlaps, so that professional operators could participate in all the scheduled appointments), the problem that Olivier Bonfait raised is whether (with reference to Paris and London), this also corresponded to a substantial homogenization of taste. The answer (again based on the price values ​​achieved at the auctions and present in the Getty Provenance Index^©) was negative: in this context, every market still tent to maintain its own peculiarities. While it is all in all logical that the French and English artists had respectively more success in their respective homelands, it appears instead indicative that, among the French artists, those most appreciated in Great Britain best corresponded to the taste preferences already practiced by the English, that is exponents of the painting of gender and landscape painters. An "internationalization" of the markets, in short, did not automatically mean a "homogenization" of taste.

Claude-Joseph Vernet, A Sporting Contest on the Tiber, 1750, London, The National Gallery
Source: The National Gallery, Creative Commons Agreement

Imports from Italy

I really regret that the contribution on which I must point out the most reservations is precisely that of an Italian, Guido Guerzoni, who dealt with the export of works of art from Italy to England between 1792 and 1830. I will make a premise: Guerzoni has been dealing with the subject for years. Suffice it to mention his Prolegomeni per uno studio del mercato artistico tra Sette ed Ottocento (Introduction to a study of the art market between the XVIII and the XIX century) in Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle conoscitore e conservatore, curated by Anna Chiara Tommasi, Venice, Marsilio, 1998. Also with Marsilio, in 2006, he published Apollo e Vulcano. I mercati artistici in Italia (1400-1700), later (2011) translated into English as Apollo and Vulcan. The art markets in Italy (1400-1700) (East Lansing, Michigan State University Press). Honestly, I have not been able to read either the Italian version of the work (which, with great courtesy, the author sent me at my request) or the English one; I am planning to do it and, for the moment, I am presenting my considerations with all necessary caution. Very effectively, Guerzoni summarized the issues related to the dispersion of Italian works of art and their protection by the pre-unification states. However, sometimes, in my opinion, he made some statements that apparently are not supported either by data or by literature: it is, for example, a simple conjecture that most of the works sold at Napoleonic auctions (of which we know nothing, because no catalogues were compiled, also because these auctions addressed works judged to be "discarded") ended up in the hands of Italian buyers who then put them back onto the market calmly in the following years. The problem is that we have no certainty on this. As to Vincenzo Bratti (to whom reference is made) we know that in 1811 he bought 1305 paintings for 791 lire at a public auction in Venice, but we ignore how he sold them. Particularly unfortunate, then, is the quote of Pietro Edwards, who, following a consolidated but wrong tradition, is indicated as one of the great buyers of the works put up for auctions. I have personally seen all the papers relating to Pietro Edwards in Venice and, without denying his involvement in the market in the years before the fall of the Republic, it can be shown that, under Napoleon, he pursued a project to create a gallery of exclusively Venetian works ordered by complete historical series. He tried, therefore, to select and save from the enormous mass of paintings made free by the Napoleonic suppression of religious orders all what he considered capable of documenting the evolution of Venetian painting (having certainly in mind Della pittura veneziana by Anton Maria Zanetti the younger of 1771). Concerning all other works, he pleaded in favour of their destruction (as Cicognara did) in order not to reduce the economic value of the patrimony of the Venetian patricians and not to lower the level of prices to the detriment of contemporary artists. A speculator would not have reasoned so [4].

But the most problematic aspect seems to me the explanation of the data that illustrate the quantities of artistic products imported from four Italian states (Grand Duchy of Tuscany, State of the Church, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Lombard-Veneto - obviously as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) in England between 1820 and 1840. The data are taken from the registers of English customs, a source of undoubted interest. They confirm an aspect that, qualitatively, we already know: The export restrictions in some realities administrative, for example in the Papal States, where the Pacca edict had been in operation since 1820, was making the export of assets more difficult. However, it is enough to compare the data relating to the exports of paintings merely from Tuscany and the Papal States to get doubts about these figures. Below I am reporting the data relating with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Papal State, with the warning that these are simply the numerical series relating to the individual years in progression (therefore 1820, 1821 etc.)

Grand Duchy of Tuscany: 429; 331; 316; 294; 407; 550; 680; 768; 1681; 1933; 1678; 1204; 1114; 1355; 1511; 1346; 1820; 2216; 2206; 2791; 3407.

Papal State: 9; 0; 0; 3; 0; 0; 0; 0; 3; 0; 0; 0; 74; 6; 0; 0; 0; 23; 0; 10; 109.

It is enough to compare these data with the chronicles that complain about the continuous plundering in those years in the State of the Church (I have in mind those from Bologna) to suppose (even net of smuggling) that there may be a quality problem with the data. And, in particular, there is a strong doubt that the English customs (as appears logical) did not record the original provenance of the artworks, but the place from which they were shipped; and that for tax, but above all logistic reasons, the British preferred to send what they had bought in Italy from the port of Livorno, where their presence was consolidated for centuries. Moreover, if still in 1858 Charles Lock Eastlake preferred to send two paintings bought from the Ferrara-based Costabili collection via Livorno, there must have been compelling reasons, which should be investigated [5]. In conclusion, although I do not know precisely those reasons, it seems to me extremely probable that the data of British customs do not correctly photograph the reality of the Ancient Italian States, which are distorted by questions related to the shipping of goods.

End of Part One 
Go to Part Two 

NOTES

[1] 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 of a European Art Market, 1780-1820, edited by Susanna Avery-Quash and Christian Huemer, p. 37.

[2] To be clearer, my doubt is that a 'dominant' market at a given time must be 'structurally' more aggressive, and above all 'differently' speculative than the others. For example, Paris may have been more speculative in the eighties of the eighteenth century and London in the second decade of the nineteenth century. I have no 'evidence' to confirm this topic. I only say that this aspect could affect the ratio of normalized prices between the two markets, negating a reading of the normalized price as a simple matter of "taste".

[3] The author, for obvious reasons of space, summarized in a few pages the features of his research, but without concretely explaining how (for example) he produced the conversion between the individual currencies and the value of gold. I am careful not to question the seriousness of his studies. However, I am pointing out that the reader, devoid of major interpretative elements, must dutifully accept these theses with the benefit of the doubt.

[4] Allow me to refer to G. Mazzaferro, Fra Repubblica, Napoleone e Impero Austriaco. Pietro Edwards Ispettore Generale alle Belle Arte in "ABAV Annuario dell'Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia 2015", curated by Alberto Giorgio Cassani, Bari-Rome, Editori Laterza.

[5] See the letter of Charles Lock Eastlake to the marquis Costabili of October 26, 1858: "Dear Sir, Mr Michelangelo Gualandi wrote me from Bologna that the box with the two known pictures has been sent to Livorno, and I hope it will happily reach London”. See Jaynie Anderson, The Restoration of Renaissance Painting in mid Nineteenth-Century Milan. Giuseppe Molteni in Correspondence with Giovanni Morelli, Florence, Edifir, 2014, p. 35 n. 18.