Lotteries, Art Markets, and Visual Culture in the Low Countries, 15th-17th Centuries

Lotteries, Art Markets, and Visual Culture in the Low Countries, 15th-17th Centuries
Author: Sophie Raux
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2018-02-19
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9004358811

Lotteries, Art Markets, and Visual Culture examines lotteries as devices for distributing images and art objects, and constructing their value in the former Low Countries. Alongside the fairs and before specialist auction sales were established, they were an atypical but popular and large-scale form of the art trade. As part of a growing entrepreneurial sensibility based on speculation and a sense of risk, they lay behind many innovations. This study looks at their actors, networks and strategies. It considers the objects at stake, their value, and the forms of visual communication intended to boost an appetite for ownership. Ultimately, it contemplates how the lottery culture impacted notions of Fortune and Vanitas in the visual arts.

Painters and Communities in Seventeenth-Century Brussels

Painters and Communities in Seventeenth-Century Brussels
Author: Rudy Jos Beerens
Publisher: Leuven University Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2024-09-30
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9462704287

In seventeenth-century Brussels, the careers of painters were shaped not only by their artistic talents but also by the communities to which they belonged. This book explores the intricate relationship between the social structures and artistic production of the 353 painters who became masters in the Brussels Guild of Painters, Goldbeaters, and Stained-Glass Makers between 1599 and 1706. This innovative study combines quantitative digital analysis with detailed qualitative case studies, offering a novel approach to the social history of art. By examining the various communities in which these artists operated, this book provides new insights into how early modern painters — both in Brussels and beyond — created their art, earned a living, and navigated the complexities of urban life. Painters and Communities in Seventeenth-Century Brussels also presents the first overview of the Brussels Baroque, with extensive biographical lists of the city’s master painters.

Fate and Fortune in European Thought, ca. 1400–1650

Fate and Fortune in European Thought, ca. 1400–1650
Author: Ovanes Akopyan
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2021-04-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9004459960

This collection of essays presents new insights into what shaped and constituted the Renaissance and early modern views of fate and fortune. It argues that these ideas were emblematic of a more fundamental argument about the self, society, and the universe and shows that their influence was more widespread, both geographically and thematically, than hitherto assumed.

A New History of Western Art

A New History of Western Art
Author: Koenraad Jonckheere
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 474
Release: 2022-10-15
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0300267525

A radical re-examination of 2,500 years of European art, deconstructing and demystifying its long history from ancient to present How has art evolved from the pursuit of the 'ideal' human form to a black square on a white canvas? Why is a banana duct-taped to a wall worth more on the art market than a beautiful seventeenth-century landscape? By taking art for what it actually is -- a piece of stone or wood, a sheet of paper with some lines drawn on it, a painted canvas -- this lively and accessible account shows how seemingly meaningless objects can be transformed into celebrated works of art. Breaking with conventional notions of artistic genius, Koenraad Jonckheere explores how stories and emotions give meaning to objects, and why changing historical circumstances result in such shifting opinions over time. Tracing its story from ancient times to present, A New History of Western Art reframes the evolution of European art and radically reshapes our understanding of art history. Published in association with Hannibal Books

Global Art Markets

Global Art Markets
Author: Iain Robertson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2024-11-29
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1040256961

The art market is worth billions globally, despite the effects of the Covid-19 health pandemic. This book brings together a strong cast of contributors to explore contemporary and historical themes. Readers of the book will gain awareness of how historical foundations of arts markets continue to impact on contemporary global developments, while transformational digital technology shakes up the art world. With new insights into emerging arts markets, the book also covers themes and phenomena such as NFTs, secrecy, platforms, and financialization in the arts. The result is a book that will prove valuable reading for scholars involved in art markets studies.

Anonymous Art at Auction

Anonymous Art at Auction
Author: Anne-Sophie V. Radermecker
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2021-05-25
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9004460209

In Anonymous Art at Auction, Anne-Sophie V. Radermecker takes the opposing view of the superstar economy by examining contemporary sales of Early Flemish paintings with unknown authorship and the effects of various substitutes for real names on price formation.

State Communication and Public Politics in the Dutch Golden Age

State Communication and Public Politics in the Dutch Golden Age
Author: Arthur der Weduwen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2023-12-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198926626

State Communication and Public Politics in the Dutch Golden Age describes the political communication practices of the authorities in the early modern Netherlands. Der Weduwen provides an in-depth study of early modern state communication: the manner in which government sought to inform its citizens, publicise its laws, and engage publicly in quarrels with political opponents. These communication strategies, including proclamations, the use of town criers, and the printing and affixing of hundreds of thousands of edicts, underpinned the political stability of the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. Based on systematic research in thirty-two Dutch archives, this book demonstrates for the first time how the wealthiest, most literate, and most politically participatory state of early modern Europe was shaped by the communication of political information. It makes a decisive case for the importance of communication to the relationship between rulers and ruled, and the extent to which early modern authorities relied on the active consent of their subjects to legitimise their government.

The Brummer Galleries, Paris and New York

The Brummer Galleries, Paris and New York
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 535
Release: 2023-05-08
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9004541063

This is the first thorough investigation of the Brummer brothers’ remarkable career as dealers in antiques, curiosities and modernism in Paris and New York over six decades (1906-1964). A dozen specialists aggregate their expertise to explore extant dealer records and museum archives, parse the wide-ranging Brummer stock, and assess how objects were sourced, marketed, labelled, restored, and displayed. The research provides insights into emerging collecting fields as they crystallised, at the crossroads between market and museum. It questions the trope of the tastemaker; the translocation of material culture, and the dealers’ prolific relationships with illustrious collectors, curators, scholars, artists, and fellow dealers.

Cosmopolitan Baroque

Cosmopolitan Baroque
Author: Bianca M. Lindorfer
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2024-10-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1040172342

This book examines the cultural relations between the Spanish and Austrian Habsburg monarchies in the seventeenth century and explores the central role of transnational aristocratic networks in cultural transfer processes between Spain and Central Europe. It tells the story of Central European aristocrats who embraced new foreign fashions, commodities, and practices to demonstrate their wealth and superior social position, thereby contributing significantly to the emergence of a cosmopolitan aristocratic Baroque culture. It shows that a new type of aristocrat emerged during this period: the cultured and educated aristocratic connoisseur, who knew how to use cultural imports and practices for his own strategic ends. However, the book also shows that not everyone was equally enthusiastic about the growing cultural imports, but that the boundaries between acceptance and rejection were often fluid. Covering a wide range of topics that span from early modern luxury consumption and food culture to collecting painting and the emergence of early modern aristocratic libraries, the book will appeal to a broad academic audience, including social and cultural historians, art historians, and cultural anthropologists alike. With its transnational scope, the book will be relevant to scholars interested in exploring the cosmopolitan nature of the early modern aristocracy also beyond the Austrian Habsburg monarchy.

Three Wise Monkeys

Three Wise Monkeys
Author: Charles van Onselen
Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2023-03-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1776192494

The Three Wise Monkeys trilogy culminates with a forensic examination of South Africa's long struggle to suppress gambling, and especially lotteries. The opposition of the Calvinist churches – both Afrikaans and English-speaking – had its counterpart in the eager embrace of games of chance by the white working class on the Witwatersrand. Focusing on the career of Rufe Naylor, an Australian bookmaker, horse dealer and entrepreneur who, with the help of a defrocked Portuguese Catholic priest, ran the Lourenço Marques Lottery, The Quest for Wealth without Work shows how the efforts of church and state to control the leisure time and morals of the working class intersected with the need to ensure the flow of cheap mine labour from Mozambique. Ultimately, in the suppression of the Lourenço Marques Lottery – and in campaigns against pinball machines, dog racing and other 'social evils' – can be seen the emerging outlines of the apartheid police state.