The Mass Market For History Paintings In Seventeenth Century Amsterdam

Millions of paintings were produced in the Dutch Republic. The works that we know and see in museums today constitute only the tip of the iceberg -- the top-quality part. But what else was painted? This book explores the low-quality end of the seventeenth-century art market and outlines the significance of that production in the genre of history paintings, which in traditional art historical studies, is usually linked to high prices, famous painters, and elite buyers. Angela Jager analyses the producers, suppliers, and consumers active in this segment to gain insight into this enormous market for cheap history paintings. What did the supply consist of in terms of quantity, quality, price, and subject? Who produced all these works and which production methods did these painters employ? Who distributed these paintings, to whom, and which strategies were used to market them? Who bought these paintings, and why?

In this study of Amsterdam's Golden Age cultural elite, John Michael Montias analyzes records of auctions from the Orphan Chamber of Amsterdam through the first half of the seventeenth century, revealing a wealth of information on some 2,000 art buyers' regional origins, social and religious affiliations, wealth, and aesthetic preferences. Chapters focus not only on the art dealers who bought at these auctions, but also on buyers who had special connections with individual artists.

Historians and art historians provide a critique of existing methodologies and an interdisciplinary inquiry into seventeenth-century Dutch art and culture.

When people attend classical music concerts today, they sit and listen in silence, offering no audible reactions to what they're hearing. We think of that as normal-but, as Darryl Cressman shows in this book, it's the product of a long history of interrelationships between music, social norms, and technology. Using the example of Amsterdam's Concertgebouw in the nineteenth century, Cressman shows how its design was in part intended to help discipline and educate concert audiences to listen attentively - and analysis of its creation and use offers rich insights into sound studies, media history, science and technology studies, classical music, and much more.

An accessible introduction to the political, economic, literary, and artistic heritage of the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century.

The question of whether seventeenth-century painters such as Rembrandt and Rubens were exclusively responsible for the paintings later sold under their names has caused many a heated debate. Despite the rise of scholarship on the history of the art market, much is still unknown about the ways in which paintings were produced, assessed, priced, and marketed during this period, which leads to several provocative questions: did contemporary connoisseurs expect masters such as Rembrandt to paint works entirely by their own hand? Who was credited with the ability to assess paintings as genuine? The contributors to this engaging collection—Eric Jan Sluijter, Hans Van Miegroet, and Neil De Marchi, among them—trace these issues through the booming art market of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, arriving at fascinating and occasionally unexpected conclusions.

Despite the tremendous number of studies produced annually in the field of Dutch art over the last 30 years or so, and the strong contemporary market for works by Dutch masters of the period as well as the public's ongoing fascination with some of its most beloved painters, until now there has been no comprehensive study assessing the state of research in the field. As the first study of its kind, this book is a useful resource for scholars and advanced students of seventeenth-century Dutch art, and also serves as a springboard for further research. Its 19 chapters, divided into three sections and written by a team of internationally renowned art historians, address a wide variety of topics, ranging from those that might be considered "traditional" to others that have only drawn scholarly attention comparatively recently.

Taking as their premiss the subjective experience of art, the authors look at how paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer & other masters were displayed & comprehended in the 17th century.