Website Designer: Jessie Lingenfelter
William Powell Frith
Coming of Age in the Olden Times
Chapter Six
Chapter six briefly discusses the changes in patronage as old and new wealth shifted from collecting Old Masters to buying works by living artists. Our data show that this change in consumption habits was associated with a significant increase in dealer presence in the market. This occasions us to revisit the earlier theme of institutionalized art dealing and focus on the modus operandi of the now established Victorian picture dealer and its effects on the period’s arts environment. A case study of 2 years of the business activities of the prominent dealer Arthur Tooth provides unprecedented insight into the operations of a typical mid-Victorian art dealing enterprise. The data show that the institutionalized trade, based on collaborative fixed location retailing, was, and still is, to a far greater extent responsible for the widely acknowledged increase in stylistic variety and innovation that occurred during this period than conventional art history has hitherto acknowledged.