RULES FOR AN EMERGENT MARKET: Selling paintings in late seventeenth-century London

Conditions of sale were a feature of the Roman auction, and probably published along with the written public announcement, the proscriptio , that preceded a sale. When such conditions appeared on the front pages of printed sale catalogues for paintings, prints and drawings in late seventeenth-century London, then, this was nothing new; but the rules themselves were almost certainly modified to fit the circumstances then prevailing. Here I wish to examine those rules and explore the rationale for either modifying traditional elements among them or introducing some for - it seems - the first time. I will also use the exploration as an occasion to conduct two additional probes. One of these will be into the likely level and structure of prices in these early London sales, the inquiry into structure revealing that many sales were two-in-one, appealing to dual audiences. The other probe will show that the market was also segmented by quality and location, which must have restricted the possibilities for immediate profitable resale and thus the likelihood that individuals' bids were influenced by those of others.

Anglo-Dutch premium auctions in eighteenth-century Amsterdam

An Anglo-Dutch premium auction consists of an English auction followed by a Dutch auction, with a cash premium paid to the winner of the first round. We study such auctions used in the secondary debt market in eighteenth-century Amsterdam. This was among the first uses of auctions, or any structured market-clearing mechanism, in a financial market. We find that this market presented two distinct challenges - generating competition and aggregating information. We argue that the Anglo-Dutch premium auction is particularly well-suited to do both. Modeling equilibrium play theoretically, we predict a positive relationship between the uncertainty in a security's value and the likelihood of a second-round bid. Analyzing data on 16,854 securities sold in the late 1700s, we find empirical support for this prediction. This suggests that bidding behavior may have been consistent with (non-cooperative) equilibrium play, and therefore that these auctions were successful at generating competition. We also find evidence suggesting that these auctions succeeded at aggregating information. Thus, the Anglo-Dutch premium auction appears to have been an effective solution to a complex early market design problem

Investments in Painting: The interaction of monetary return and psychic income

The financial press gives very regular attention to art and culture in their many forms. Business newspapers such as the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Het Financieele Dagblad and De Financieel Economische Tijd give over plenty of space in their weekend editions to news of art auction prices and exhibitions of major or less well-known works. As well as this practical outlook, more theoretical economists have given increasing attention to the economics of art since the 1970s. There has been a remarkably large amount of research into the pricing of art and the closely associated subject of the return on purchases of art. This centres on painting in general and on individual painters. The attention to painting in the business press is without doubt prompted by the need for journalistic variety, plus the wish to impart a cultural element to the reporting. The provision of market information to readers is, of course, another significant motive. It is less simple to explain the academic interest of economists. At first sight, it seems exotic. But that is a hasty conclusion. Along with intellectual curiosity, there is probably a role for the need to apply trusted analytical methods to new areas of research. Whatever the reason, there is a place for the systematic study of the literature on the sense and nonsense of investing in painting and this is the objective of this paper. It is, however, also a report of explorations in a field that has fascinated me personally as an economist for many years. I, therefore, wrote this essay with great pleasure and hope I can share my enjoyment with my readers in the same way that guidebooks can sometimes add to the pleasure of a trip.

The Temporal Dimensions of the London Art Auction, 1780–1835

The rush of activity among London’s auction houses in the first few weeks of summer has long been a familiar occurrence that persists even today. However, this intense seasonal concentration of sales was not always so. This paper draws on quantitative methods to explore the gradual emergence of a tightly scheduled auction season in London at the turn of the nineteenth century, focusing on the sale of paintings. By analysing historical art auction catalogue data, the paper traces the ways in which this shift varied across different segments of the auction market, as well as between individual auction houses. As our study shows, the temporal clustering of painting auctions had specific business advantages, but it also played a key role in enhancing the social import of these auctions, demarcating an annual, weeks- long “event” looked to with anticipation and excitement by auctioneers and buyers alike

Making the Bed in Later Stuart and Georgian England

This is a chapter that deals with perhaps the most important item of furniture and its soft furnishings that any early modern probably invested in and owned. In 2001 Roger Ekirch suggested that the 'elusive realm of sleep' had been long ignored by historians of most stamps; only now are we 'waking up' to what he calls the 'profound role pre-industrial sleep played in the lives of ordinary men and women' being of concomitant importance as investigating what they did in their waking hours. And yet this is not a chapter about sleeping or dreaming or conversing with God or sexual congress, in bed. It is rather an examination of the material making and maintaining of the bed – from frame to cord to 'bed' or mattress, linens and 'furniture' or curtains and valences – and their routes into and out of the consuming lives of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century householders

Mobile objects: the space of shells in eighteenth-century France

The frequent distinction made between scientific and purely amateur collections misrepresents the specificity of the field of eighteenth-century natural history. This paper argues that the extent and the boundaries of a scientific field can be determined only within the framework of concrete historical constellations of institutions, protagonists, practices and objects. By tracing the circulation of shells in eighteenth-century France, Paris in particular, between about 1735 and 1780, it becomes evident which individuals or groups actually came into contact with these shells ; in what practices of collecting, describing and classification they were involved; and in what spaces they were displayed. Thus the contours of a constellation emerge which differ considerably from those drawn hitherto

The cultural capitalists: notes on the ongoing reconfiguration of trafficking culture in Asia

Most analysis of the international flows of the illicit art market has described a global situation in which a postcolonial legacy of acquisition and collection exploits cultural heritage by pulling it westwards towards major international trade nodes in the USA and Europe. As the locus of consumptive global economic power shifts, however, these traditional flows are pulled in other directions: notably for the present commentary, towards and within Asia

The Market for Paintings in Italy during the Seventeenth Century

We study the Seventeenth century market for figurative paintings in Italy analyzing original contracts between patrons and artists. We show that a number of supply and demand factors affected prices. We find a positive and concave relation between prices and size of paintings reflecting economies of scale. We show evidence of a positive relationship between prices and the number of figures depicted. Trade in paintings was sufficient to equalize prices between different destinations. Finally, we provide support for the Galenson hypothesis of a positive relation between age of experimental artists and quality as priced by the market.

A Socio-economic Analysis of French Public Timber Sales

This socio-economic study aims to better understand the functioning and the evolution of timber sales held by the French public forest service. The auction mechanism is the historical institution which has been used in France for centuries. The recent will to develop supply contracts through private agreements is a major change in the French timber industry. It accurately raises questions about the timber prices issue.Timber sales, timber auctions, timber prices, French public forests, French wood industry, institution