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In the twilight between old and new. The second-hand markets for paintings in 18th century Antwerp and Brussels.
| In the course of the 17th and 18th-century the second-hand markets of the Southern Netherlands showed signs of a growing tendency towards specialisation. For luxury objects such as books, paintings and furniture, separate sales were increasingly organised, often of a semi- or illegal kind. Parallel with this evolution, the established ways of second-hand dealing by the so-called oudkleerkopers (second-hand cloth dealers) came under pressure, resulting in a systematic decrease of their control over the processes of commercial recycling in the course the 18th-century.
The failing corporate control of the second-hand market and the rise of a specialised auction scene in the course of the 18th-century still presents us with a lot of questions. How did these different channels of second-hand distribution relate to one another? Who were the organisers of the growing number of specialised sales: oudkleerkopers in search of survival strategies in a declining business or rather new commercial middlemen with a keen sense for opportunities? And how did they implement innovating marketing tools such as advertisements or sale catalogues in their hunt for suitable customers? How to reach, play and keep clientele became ever more important at the dawn of a consumer society. Focusing on the second-hand trade in paintings in Antwerp and Brussels for the period 1700-1800, we will try to find an answer to these and related questions.
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