Jewish Dealers and the European Art Market, C. 1860-1940: Negotiating Cultural Modernity

Before the tragedy of the Holocaust, many of the leading art and antiques dealers across Europe were Jewish, establishing dynamic cross-Channel, international and transatlantic networks. Aside from a few famous examples, however, we are only at the beginning of exploring the diversity of Jewish dealers’ commercial and cultural worlds, and reflecting on the particular conditions that made possible their dramatic expansion within the profession.

Adopting a wider geography than any previous study, this book brings together a team of distinguished international contributors to consider Jewish art dealers as an interconnected cohort, tied together by common strategies and a shared vulnerability. After an extended historiographical introduction, the volume presents case studies and trends from 1860-1940, including: Jewish family businesses in Western Europe; the role of Jews as mediators of art from East Asia; the antisemitism and suspicion faced by Jewish dealers; Jews as theorists, exhibition makers and promoters of modern art; and the geographical mobility and professional reinvention of Jewish dealers in times of economic and political crisis.

With a wide variety of illustrations, including paintings, decorative arts, historic photographs and archival material, the volume adopts a mix of methodological approaches to analyse a key chapter in Jewish cultural history and in the history of the international art market.

Includes Afterword by Charles Dellheim, author of Belonging and Betrayal: How Jews Made the Art World Modern (2021).

Silvia Davoli is Curator at Strawberry Hill House and Garden (The Horace Walpole Collection), UK and Research Associate at the University of Oxford, UK. Specialising in the history of collecting, connoisseurship and provenance, Silvia has published numerous articles internationally on Italian, French and English collecting.

Tom Stammers was Associate Professor of Modern European Cultural History at the University of Durham; in September 2024 he became Reader in Cultural and Art History at The Courtauld Institute of Art, UK. A specialist in collecting, Tom has published widely on French, British and European cultural history in the long 19th century.