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Abstract
Quantitative historical art markets research’s position at the crossroads between economics and art history poses serious methodological and theoretical challenges to two distinct groups of scholars while also embracing an aggregate vision of art that often employs digital tools. In this paper, we analyze two bodies of literature—art market research within art history and art market research within cultural economics—to assess their respective approaches and methodological distance. Our research highlights a set of desirable components for an innovative, interdisciplinary approach that speaks to both of these scholars using examples of recent publications that show strengths in these areas, stressing the importance of standardizing, diversifying, and sharing data among art market researchers; arguing for minimal standards for statistical analysis, to better consider and reflect the realities of art markets and related data; and providing suggestions for improving communication between disciplines, with collaboration being a clear option for achieving these goals. Based on these suggestions, this paper encourages the development of a hybrid discipline that overcomes the dichotomy between art history and cultural economics and make the most of digital tools’ potential for data gathering and analysis.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/dah.2020.5.75780
AuthorS
Anne-Sophie V. Radermecker
holds a Ph.D. in Art history/Cultural Economics from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. She is a former B.A.E.F. fellow at Duke University (DALMI) and lecturer at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Since 2021, she is an assistant professor in Cultural Management at the Université libre de Bruxelles. Her main research interests are the economics of art and culture, early modern art and the market for old master paintings, the economics of antiques and indeterminate works of art, the reciprocal interactions between museums and the art market (incl. acquisition policies and deaccessioning), and quantitative methods applied to art history. She has published several cross-disciplinary papers in both journals in economics (JEBO, JCEC) and art history (NKJ, Marges,…).
Felipe Álvarez de Toledo López-Herrera
holds a Ph.D. in Art History from Duke University. He received a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, as well as extensive training in art history from the University of Barcelona. His interests include visual culture, art markets (in particular, the transcontinental trade in paintings in the Early Modern Period), Spain and Latin America, the early modern period, and data-driven art-historical research at the intersection with economics. He also has an interest in Python and automated methods for data gathering, as well as other digital tools such as ArcGIS.