Old Masters Worldwide

by Susanna Avery-Quash

"As a result of the Napoleonic wars, vast numbers of Old Master paintings were released on to the market from public and private collections across Continental Europe. The knock-on effect was the growth of the market for Old Masters from the 1790s up to the early 1930s, when the Great Depression put an end to its expansion. This book explores for the first time the global movement of Old Master paintings and investigates some of the changes in the art market that took place as a result of this new interest. Arguably, the most important phenomenon was the diminishing of the traditional...