Ancient art and the eighteenth‐century auction: Collecting, catalogues and competition

Cochrane, Nicole

Abstract

This article explores the role of the auction in the formation and dispersal of collections of ancient art in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. I demonstrate that competitive collecting, as well as the culture of acquiring as well as fragmenting collections at auction, had a profound effect on the way in which British buyers collected and displayed antiquities within their private collections. I argue that through an exploration of two textual sites, the auction and collection catalogue, we can observe that collectors carefully curated their collections, visually as well as textually, in order to craft specific narratives centered on the act of auction collecting, shaping and shifting the ways in which collectors understood and curated the art of antiquity.

Citation

Cochrane, N. (2021). Ancient art and the eighteenth‐century auction: Collecting, catalogues and competition. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 44(3), 277-292. https://doi.org/10.1111/1754-0208.12775

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 6, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Sep 15, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021
• Deposit Date: Sep 16, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 27, 2021
• Journal: Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies
• Print ISSN: 1754-0194
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 44
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 277-292
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1754-0208.12775
• Keywords: Antiquity; Art market; Auction; Collecting; Provenance; Sculpture
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/3833417