A Guide to Eighteenth-Century Art by Walsh Linda;

Author:Walsh, Linda;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
Published: 2016-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

The art market worked in a variety of ways, and financial support for artists was complex. At the top end of the market, aristocratic patrons could support artists financially and lend more general support by inviting them to stay and create art in their country mansions, as Lord Egremont did for Turner at Petworth, where the degree of creative freedom afforded the artist was exceptional. They might also allow artists to view and learn from their private collections or introduce them to other potential patrons through their dinner party networks. The Duke of Richmond was, for example, highly instrumental in enabling Stubbs, among others, to establish his career, by introducing him to a range of social contacts. In return, a patron might bask in reflected glory. A broader, astute approach to sales by an artist might involve painting subjects taken from popular broadsides or theatrical productions, as did Hogarth and Zoffany (Simon, 2011). Artists might also sell works through the shops of picture dealers, or exhibit works in locations that drew the crowds, such as (in Paris) the St German Fair or the Pont Notre Dame and nearby riverside spots, where works would be displayed outdoors (Wrigley, 1993, 20–24).

Guild members could set up shops at Parisian fairs, as could Flemish artists in Paris, who were free from trade restrictions. Visitors came from a wide social spectrum – servants, merchants and nobles. The St Germain fair included a street where painters’ wares could be sold alongside those of ironmongers (Crow, 1985, 46). Such outdoor locations often acquired a reputation for selling poor quality works or “mere” copies of Salon exhibits, while the shops of more established picture dealers (such as that of Edme‐François Gersaint, 1694–1750) (Figure 3.2) often sold paintings and sculptures alongside other luxury goods intended for domestic interiors. Dealers advertised paintings and prints through newspapers, sales catalogues and shop windows. They were part of a large commercial network that, in developed markets such as Britain and France, and later in other parts of western Europe, also included a significant role for auction houses (which attracted connoisseurs, amateurs, collectors, artists and members of the general public), commercial galleries, printers, publishers, engravers and printsellers (Brewer, 1997, xvii; Schoneveld Van‐Stoltz, 1989, 218). Meanwhile, the Académie royale in Paris tried to distance itself from such crude commercialization: in the 1780s, when anxious to implement moral reform, it refused to carry out monetary valuations of artworks (Wrigley, 1993, 26–27). Exhibitions held by the main academies themselves, and the critical reviews they prompted, were essential for securing sales and commissions, though some exhibits were commissioned in advance by the state, the church, corporate or private patrons (Conisbee, 1981, 26). Some Académie royale artists, for example, Maurice Quentin de la Tour, were skilled in courting the press (Craskem 1997, 30–31). Artists sometimes issued prints of their paintings in advance of academy exhibitions, as an effective publicity stunt: this was the case in London with Zoffany’s Plundering the King’s Cellar at Paris (1794).

Figure 3.2 Jean‐Antoine Watteau: Shop Sign of the Art Dealer Gersaint, oil on canvas, 163 × 308cm, 1720.

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