Objects Through the Art Market: A Global Perspective – OBJECTive

With the creation of a new database my project aims to transform the scope of analysis of the art markets studies which to this day address only partial aspects, focusing on the market for paintings or “fine arts”. In fact the art market is vast and consists in great part in the sale of objects. To develop a global approach, inclusive of objects, I propose to build-up a specifically designed database, accessible on the internet. It would provide new data, from archives unexplored to this day, compiled with other scattered sources, opening to new perspectives of research scholars world-wide, bringing interdisciplinary studies through art history.
Art market history is an essential addition to art history, opening up to interdisciplinary studies, crossing art with economics, urban, social history and sociology. Investigating trajectories of works, construction of price and dynamics of circulation are central in these studies and now digital methods have developed, they transform the scope of analysis. As such, the French project ARTL@S created BASART and GEOMAP to examine the channels and networks that make up the market for fine arts. Founded in the1980s The Getty Provenance Index is the pioneering database to research the history of individual works through the European market and across time (prices, collectors, dealers, provenance) but, again, it is limited to pictures and nothing comparable has been done for other artistic objects, designated as decorative arts. Separating the data relative to the pictures’ sales from other goods has been detrimental to the history of taste and the history of art.
This database will be a new instrument to explore markets and trajectory of objects such as furniture, ceramics, clocks etc. over a long time period (1700-2000). It will be built for specific searches on objects / sales / sellers / buyers / places to answer questions relative to provenance, circulation, collections, expertise and trade, but also to offer broader analysis and global perspective on the market. It will be incomparable to the scattered pieces of information found in publications and will have a great impact on future scholarly research in the fields. The data will be input from historic auction sales over a long period (1700-2000), in cross-referencing auction catalogues and auction records and archives. The first core of the data will come from the unexploited handwritten sales reports of the Parisian auctioneers, preserved in the Archives de Paris. It is a vast and homogeneous source specific to France, allowing for both quantitative and qualitative analysis over a long period. It will be supplemented by sources from other international sales, held in London or New York for example.
International museums will be able to use it to research their collections and find provenance across time. For example, facing the present problems of restitution, it could be used to find the circulation of objects during the Nazi Occupation period. The accessibility of the data will have an impact on research across historical disciplines (economics, sociology, gender studies, trade etc.). Moreover, it will be a groundbreaking contribution in the history of European collections but also to explore the worldwide expansion of the market in the 19th-20th centuries. It will expose the mechanisms of the trade and the persisting problems of regulation.
The database will form a groundbreaking model for future research, with the aim to be built-up with international sources. It will have to be interoperable with the Getty Index for example. Consultation with engineers and research teams from various institutions will be necessary and an international scientific committee will be created, to encourage international collaborations. The extent of the data input and the expertise needed to model the database require the ERC Starting Grant, to appoint a team involved in the project for 5 years after a period of preparation during the post-doc.