The contemporary art market is a pre-eminently modern phenomenon, but its roots lie in the early modern and modern past: in sixteenth-century Antwerp and seventeenth-century Amsterdam, for instance, where entrepreneurs turned art into valuable assets and easily exchangeable commodities; in eighteenth-century London, where auctioneers helped to create art’s spectacular rise in value; and in nineteenth and twentieth-century Paris and New York, where flamboyant art dealers made and broke artistic careers and catered for the ultra-rich.

This lecture takes you on a trip through the history of the modern art market and explores the way in which clever dealers, cunning agents and artists with a nose for business paved the way for today’s glittering art fairs, sensational auction records and globalised art market.