Connoisseurship
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Despite the central importance of connoisseurship in the rarefied world of art collecting, it occupies an uncomfortable position in modern scholarship. On the one hand, the concept retains a significant role in the study of art and the care of public and private collections when it is linked with art appreciation, qualities visible to the attuned eye, or the processes of attribution and authentication. On the other hand, the last century has seen connoisseurship marginalized in academic discourse: it is often associated with amateurism, social elitism, status-display, and intellectual mystification.
The present collection of essays enters this breach and--by adopting a broad, interdisciplinary approach--considers connoisseurship afresh, investigating its practice in both familiar and unexpected places. Essays on the role of connoisseurship in Western art history appear alongside innovative, global perspectives on Chinese numismatics and walnut collecting, wine and coffee expertise, the market for geological specimens, and the parallels between Morellian connoisseurship and modern forensics. These essays resonate with one another in surprising ways and create new dialogues about connoisseurship's meaning and application, demonstrating that its practice can be both intuitive and scientific.
Christina M. Anderson is the Daphne Jackson Principal Research Fellow in the School of European Languages, Culture and Society at University College London. She is the author of The Flemish Merchant of Venice: Daniel Nijs and the Sale of the Gonzaga Art Collection.
Peter Stewart is Professor of Ancient Art and Director of the Classical Art Research Centre at the University of Oxford, where he is responsible for the Beazley Archive. His publications include Statues in Roman Society, The Social History of Roman Art, and A Catalogue of the Sculpture Collection at Wilton House.