Since its foundation in 2007, the Center for the History of Collecting at The Frick Collection and Frick Art Reference Library has been committed to expanding the literature in this important and growing branch of the fields of art and cultural history.1 This volume is the Center’s most recent of several publications that have responded to the call from the Robert H. Smith Family Foundation to address subjects related to the collecting of art created during the Renaissance and Baroque eras. The first two focus on American collectors of works of long-dead artists of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque, while a third presents sculpture collections and patrons over the course of several centuries.
As the final volume of this quartet of Smith Foundation-sponsored publications, this book dials back the timeline of collecting during the Renaissance to encourage readers to contemplate the collecting culture, patronage, and art market of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries as though in real time—“when Michelangelo was modern.” In doing so, the authors of the book’s eleven chapters deepen our understanding of the modus operandi of the art market, including the commercial activities of artists as agents. The role of men and women of letters as well as courtesans is also highlighted, as they, too, served as agents and influenced shifts in taste.
In addition to presenting the activities of now-famous artists from the point of view of their contemporaries, these essays also make a profound contribution to the fields of art and cultural history by bringing to light much archival material. This kind of research has been at the heart of the Center’s mission since its beginnings, as it has hosted symposia that air new research through primary documents, sponsored nearly one hundred fellowships, compiled a significant library of oral histories (a program coordinated with the Archives of American Art through the generosity of Barbara Fleischman), and created the uniquely valuable Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America (
All of the Center’s publications have their origins in symposia. These exceptionally successful events have appealed to audiences of specialists and the curious public alike as they have also introduced seasoned scholars to up-and-coming young professionals. Most significantly, the symposia have brought together scholars who may not have previously viewed their art historical areas of expertise through the lens of collecting, thus prompting lively exchanges as they viewed their favored category of art in the broader context of cultural history. The symposia are all available for viewing on the website of The Frick Collection (
As with any publication, many individuals and organizations deserve acknowledgement and thanks. Director Emerita Anne Litle Poulet was instrumental in garnering the support of the Robert H. Smith Family Foundation and we owe a great debt both to her and the Foundation. The Frick’s current Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Director Ian Wardropper carried forward Anne Poulet’s support of the Center as an active member of its Advisory Committee. The arrangements of the symposium that gave rise to this publication, from the selection of speakers to the logistics of the event, were flawlessly overseen by the Center’s current and former staff: Center Director Emerita Inge Reist and the Center’s two Assistant Directors Esmée Quodbach and Samantha Deutch as well as Margaret Laster, who conferred regularly with Louisa Wood Ruby, Head of Research at the Frick Art Reference Library, and Ellen Prokop, Associate Head of Research at the Library. Inge then took up the baton and embarked on the long, often time-consuming journey of editing this volume with continuing institutional support from the Frick and conferring often with her counterparts at Brill, Liesbeth Hugenholtz and Christian Huemer, the Editor in Chief of Brill’s series Studies in the History of Collecting & Art Markets, to whom we also owe our thanks. Last but certainly not least, we are deeply grateful to the chapter authors of this volume, each of whom was willing to spend time outside of demanding professional commitments, to contribute to this book, confident that it will take its place as a meaningful contribution to the burgeoning field of the History of Collecting.
Stephen Bury
Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian
Frick Art Reference Library
To date, the Center has published ten books dedicated to a broad range of topics in the field, most have concentrated on collecting paintings of a particular period—the Italian Renaissance or the Dutch Golden Age, for example—while others focus on collecting the works of a particular artist and yet others have addressed broad, general topics such as women art collectors and Anglo-American patterns of collecting. The titles of these publications are Power Underestimated: American Women Art Collectors, eds., Inge Reist and Rosella Mamoli Zorzi (Venice: Marsilio, 2011); British Models of Collecting and the American Response: Reflections Across the Pond, ed. Inge Reist (Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014); Collecting Spanish Art: Spain’s Golden Age and America’s Gilded Age, and El Greco Comes to America: The Discovery of a Modern Old Master, both eds., Inge Reist and José Luis Colomer (New York and Madrid: The Frick Collection and Centro Europa de Estudios Hispanica and Center for Spain in America, 2012 and 2017, respectively); five volumes of the series The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Collecting in America published by The Frick Collection, New York, and Pennsylvania University Press, University Park: Holland’s Golden Age in America: Collecting the Art of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Hals, ed. Esmée Quodbach (2014); A Market for Merchant Princes: Collecting Italian Renaissance Paintings in America, ed. Inge Reist (2015); Buying Baroque: Italian Seventeenth Century Paintings Come To America, ed. Edgar Peters Bowron (2017); The Americas Revealed: Collecting Colonial and Modern Latin American Art in the United States, ed. Edward J. Sullivan (2018); America and the Art of Flanders, ed. Esmée Quodbach (2020), and Sculpture Collections in Europe and the United States 1500–1930: Variety and Ambiguity, eds. Malcolm Baker and Inge Reist (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021). Most recently The Frick Collection, Centro de de Estudios Europa, and Center for Spain in America published a volume in honor of the Center for the History of Collecting’s founding director: What’s Mine is Yours: Private Collectors and Public Patronage in the United States: Essays in Honor of Inge Reist, edited by Esmée Quodbach (2021).