Based on an extensive and very meticulous study of different archives and the evaluation of original, previously unpublished, archival material, this book highlights the key aspects and trends of the European and American art markets in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, the book focuses on how these markets influenced each other from the viewpoint of one of the most prominent museum directors of this period, Wilhelm von Bode (1845–1929). Given the complexity of the topic, the book is structured into two parts. The first part focuses on Bode’s interactions with the German banker and dedicated art collector based in Paris, Rudolphe Kann (1845–1905). The second part follows the sale of the Kann Collection to the dealer Joseph Duveen and follows on the relationship between Bode, Duveen and the American collectors. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, museum studies, and the art market.

The volume exposes the modus operandi of Wilhelm Bode’s strategic involvement in the art market and the formation and dissolution of public and private collections, showcasing his complex agency within the art marketplace of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Forming a collection -- Transacting an entire collection -- Dealers for dealers -- (No longer) obscure agents -- Issues of attribution.

This volume explores the crucial role of art dealers in creating a transatlantic art market in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. “There was money in the air, ever so much money,” wrote Henry James in 1907, reflecting on the American appetite for art acquisitions. Indeed, collectors such as Henry Clay Frick and Andrew W. Mellon are credited with bringing noteworthy European art to the United States, with their collections forming the backbone of major American museums today. But what of the dealers, who possessed the expertise in art and recognized the potential of developing a new market model on both sides of the Atlantic? Money in the Air investigates the often-overlooked role of these dealers in creating an international art world. Contributors examine the histories of wellknown international firms like Duveen Brothers, M. Knoedler & Co., and Goupil & Cie and their relationships with American clients, as well as accounts of other remarkable dealers active in the transatlantic art market. Drawing on dealer archives, scholars reveal compelling findings, including previously unknown partnerships and systems of cooperation. This volume offers new perspectives on the development of art collections that formed the core of American art museums, such as the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Frick Collection.

On the basis of extensive archival research, the essays in this volume examine the minutiae of object transaction in the late nineteenth-century art market within its social network and broader historical context.

In recent years, the emerging field of museum studies has seen rapid expansion in the critical study of museums and scholars started to question the institution and its functions. To contribute differentiated viewpoints to the currently evolving meta-discourse on the museum, this volume aims to investigate how the institution of the museum has been visualized and translated into different kinds of images and how these images have affected our perception of these institutions. In this interdisciplinary collection, scholars from a variety of academic backgrounds, including art history, heritage, museums studies and architectural history, explore a broad range of case studies stretching across the globe. The volume opens up debate about the epistemological and historiographical significance of a variety of different images and representations of the Art Museum, including the transformation or adaptation of the image of the art museum across periods and cultures. In this context, this volume aims to develop a new theoretical framework while proposing new methodological tools and resources for the analysis of museological representations on a global scale.

As a result of the Napoleonic wars, vast numbers of Old Master paintings were released on to the market from public and private collections across continental Europe. The knock-on effect was the growth of the market for Old Masters from the 1790s up to the early 1930s, when the Great Depression put an end to its expansion. This book explores the global movement of Old Master paintings and investigates some of the changes in the art market that took place as a result of this new interest. Arguably, the most important phenomenon was the diminishing of the traditional figure of the art agent and the rise of more visible, increasingly professional, dealerships; firms such as Colnaghi and Agnew's in Britain, Goupil in France and Knoedler in the USA, came into existence. Old Masters Worldwide explores the ways in which the pioneering practices of such businesses contributed to shape a changing market.

The old masters' new masters -- Was modernism Jewish? -- In the middle -- To have and have not.

This book explores ideologies, conflicts and ideas that underpinned art historical writing in Ukraine in the 20th century. Disciplinary beginnings testify both to its deep connection to Krakow, Saint Petersburg and especially Vienna with its school of art history and originality of theoretical thought. Art history started as another imperial project in Ukraine, but ultimately transformed into the means of assertion of national identity. The volume looks closely at the continuity and ruptures in scholarship caused by the establishment of Soviet power and challenges a number of existing stereotypes like total isolation under Communist rule and strict adherence to a Marxist-Leninist methodology. It showcases intellectual exchanges through published work, personal contacts and ways to resist the politically enforced methodology. Despite keeping the focus on one country, it contributes to understanding the development of art history as an academic discipline in Europe more generally. It also uncovers unknown or little-researched personal and academic connections between art historians from Ukraine and their peers abroad. Starting with the 19th-century quest for the method and proceeding by disentangling the complexities of the 20th century, the authors move on to the specifics of historiography after the formal collapse of the USSR. The volume transgresses purely academic boundaries and tackles the development of the discourse in periodicals, exhibition spaces and public discussions. Thus, the findings will be pertinent to all interested in politics, art history, museum studies, intellectual history, historiography and Eastern European studies.

This volume explores a basic question in the historiography of art: the extent to which iconology was a homogenous research method in its own immutable right. By contributing to the rejection of the universalizing narrative, these case studies argue that there were many strands of iconology. Methods that differed from the ‘canonised’ approach of Panofsky were proposed by Godefridus Johannes Hoogewerff and Hans Sedlmayr. Researchers affiliated with the Warburg Institute in London also chose to distance themselves from Panofsky’s work. Poland, in turn, was the breeding ground for yet another distinct variety of iconology. In Communist Czechoslovakia there were attempts to develop a ‘Marxist iconology’. This book, written by recognized experts in the field, examines these and other major strands of iconology, telling the tale of iconology’s reception in the countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain. Attitudes there ranged from enthusiastic acceptance in Poland, to critical reception in the Soviet Union, to reinterpretation in Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic, and, finally, to outright rejection in Romania. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual studies, and historiography.