Art at Auction in 17th Century Amsterdam

John Michael Montias

Jan 2002 · Amsterdam University Press

About this ebook

In this study of Amsterdam's Golden Age cultural elite, John Michael Montias analyzes records of auctions from the Orphan Chamber of Amsterdam through the first half of the seventeenth century, revealing a wealth of information on some 2,000 art buyers' regional origins, social and religious affiliations, wealth, and aesthetic preferences. Chapters focus not only on the art dealers who bought at these auctions, but also on buyers who had special connections with individual artists.

About the author

John Michael Montias (1928) was trained as an economist (Ph.D. Columbia University, 1958). In the first part of his career, he specialized in the comparison of economic systems. Since 1975, he has devoted most of his research to the art market in the 17th century Netherlands. His first book, Artists and Artisans in Delft; a Study of the Seventeenth Century, was published in 1982, his second, Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History, in 1989. Since then he has written a book in French on the art market in the Netherlands (Le marché de l'art aux Pays Bas, 15ème-18ème siècles, 1996) and, with John Loughman, a book on the hanging of pictures in 17th century Dutch houses (Public and Private Spaces; Works of Art in Seventeenth Century Dutch Houses, 2000).