Figure 3.1 Pompeo Batoni: Francis Basset, 1st Baron of Dunstanville, oil on canvas, 221 × 157 cm,
- Madrid, Museo del Prado.
Source: akgimages/Album/Joseph Martin.The art market worked in a variety of ways, and financial support for artists was complex. At the top end
of the market, aristocratic patrons could support artists financially and lend more general support by
inviting them to stay and create art in their country mansions, as Lord Egremont did for Turner at
Petworth, where the degree of creative freedom afforded the artist was exceptional. They might also
allow artists to view and learn from their private collections or introduce them to other potential patrons
through their dinner party networks. The Duke of Richmond was, for example, highly instrumental in
enabling Stubbs, among others, to establish his career, by introducing him to a range of social contacts. In
return, a patron might bask in reflected glory. A broader, astute approach to sales by an artist might
involve painting subjects taken from popular broadsides or theatrical productions, as did Hogarth and
Zoffany (Simon, 2011). Artists might also sell works through the shops of picture dealers, or exhibit
works in locations that drew the crowds, such as (in Paris) the St German Fair or the Pont Notre Dame
and nearby riverside spots, where works would be displayed outdoors (Wrigley, 1993, 20–24).
Guild members could set up shops at Parisian fairs, as could Flemish artists in Paris, who were free from
trade restrictions. Visitors came from a wide social spectrum – servants, merchants and nobles. The St
Germain fair included a street where painters’ wares could be sold alongside those of ironmongers
(Crow, 1985, 46). Such outdoor locations often acquired a reputation for selling poor quality works or
“mere” copies of Salon exhibits, while the shops of more established picture dealers (such as that of
EdmeFrançois Gersaint, 1694–1750) ( Figure 3.2) often sold paintings and sculptures alongside other
luxury goods intended for domestic interiors. Dealers advertised paintings and prints through newspapers,
sales catalogues and shop windows. They were part of a large commercial network that, in developed
markets such as Britain and France, and later in other parts of western Europe, also included a significant
role for auction houses (which attracted connoisseurs, amateurs, collectors, artists and members of the
general public), commercial galleries, printers, publishers, engravers and printsellers (Brewer, 1997,
xvii; Schoneveld VanStoltz, 1989, 218). Meanwhile, the Académie royale in Paris tried to distance
itself from such crude commercialization: in the 1780s, when anxious to implement moral reform, it
refused to carry out monetary valuations of artworks (Wrigley, 1993, 26–27). Exhibitions held by the
main academies themselves, and the critical reviews they prompted, were essential for securing sales and
commissions, though some exhibits were commissioned in advance by the state, the church, corporate or
private patrons (Conisbee, 1981, 26). Some Académie royale artists, for example, Maurice Quentin de la
Tour, were skilled in courting the press (Craskem 1997, 30–31). Artists sometimes issued prints of their
paintings in advance of academy exhibitions, as an effective publicity stunt: this was the case in London
with Zoffany’s Plundering the King’s Cellar at Paris (1794).