Theo van Gogh and the 19th-century art trade: introduction
In the summer of 1999, following its complete renovation and extension, the Van Gogh Museum devoted its reopening exhibition to the life and work of Theo van Gogh. Theo van Gogh, 1857-1891: art dealer, collector and brother of Vincent - which was developed in collaboration with the Musée d'Orsay in Paris - paid homage to a man who may be regarded as one of the most important founders of the Van Gogh Museum and its collection, albeit indirectly.
In the exhibition, Theo van Gogh's life as a collector and his activities as a dealer for Boussod, Valadon & Cie. were set within the context of the time. Unlike the modernist approach, with its focus on the description of (the history) of the avant-garde, this method produces not a neat linear development, but rather a complex picture with room for interplay between traditional and progressive art forms.
An exhibition about an art dealer and collector is no everyday occurrence. However, the research required for the show can be said to fit into a specific art historical tradition in which the central concern is not the form, content or function of the work of art, but rather its production and distribution, and the social environment in which it was created. A special field of study within this more exogenous approach is the study of the art market and its operation. One of the pioneering works in this area has for many years been Harrison and Cynthia White's 1965 publication, Canvases and careers: institutional change in the French painting world. The Whites' broad, sociologically based methodology has been considerably modified in recent times, partly as a result of the introduction of new social, economic or history-related methods, and/or the demarcation of the subject according to thematic, chronological or geographical criteria. The more traditional, biographical or monographic approach also remains an alternative. Here, the aim is to present the art dealer in his time, using as a resource the information acquired through the type of broad-based investigation mentioned above.
In order to gain insight into the current state of research on the 19th-century art market, the Van Gogh Museum organised a symposium in conjunction with the Theo van Gogh exhibition; entitled The art trade in the 19th century, it was held on 1 and 2 July 1999. Eight scholars presented papers on a variety of subjects within the field. Seven of these are published, in slightly modified form, in this volume of the Van Gogh Museum Journal. One author, Martha Ward, preferred not to make her lecture (‘Art critics and art dealers in late 19th-century Paris’) available for inclusion. Two further essays, by Monique Nonne and Aaron Sheon, respectively, complement the symposium papers.
These writings all attest to the breadth of the current investigation into the 19th-century art market. They can be divided into three related groups. The first is chiefly concerned with Theo van Gogh: Chris Stolwijk describes the young man's apprenticeship at Goupil's in The Hague, while Richard Thomson considers the tactics Theo, as a full-fledged art dealer in Paris, later employed in order to bring work to the attention of collectors and artists. Monique Nonne surveys Theo's clientele and Aaron Sheon describes his activities as a print publisher. The contributions by Patricia Mainardi and Linda Whiteley offer a wide-ranging view of the role of copies and replicas in the art world and the increasingly important role prints played in promoting artists. Finally, Caroline Durand-Ruel Godfroy and Frances Fowle discuss two other art dealers who played a major role in this period - Paul Durand-Ruel in Paris and Alexander Reid in the United Kingdom - and Madeleine Fidell-Beaufort examines the emerging art trade in America.
Finally, the editors of the Van Gogh Museum Journal would like to thank the authors for releasing their texts for publication.
Chris Stolwijk
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