Valuing European tapestry: from riches to rags

Anne-Sophie Radermecker and Koenraad Brosens

ULB Institutional Repository from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: To counteract the longstanding bias toward paintings, this paper offers a preliminary, diachronic exploration of the market for European tapestries. By combining qualitative and quantitative data from sales and collection inventories, historiographical sources, and secondary literature, we shed light on past and present valuation mechanisms for this once esteemed luxury good. First, we discuss the supply of tapestries in the Early Modern period before examining demand. We then consider buyers’ main motivations to commission woven works, including ostentation, devotion, lifestyle, and national identity building. Furthermore, we examine the characteristics that drove the medium’s market value in the past, such as city brand name, technique and material, size, genre, and condition. We also investigate the variables that still influence buyers’ willingness to pay in the contemporary auction market. The main contribution of this research is to highlight lesser-known works and markets that originated in the Early Modern period and that still represent a distinct segment of the art market in the present.

Keywords: Buyers’ motivations; Demand; European tapestry; Market value; Supply; Textile art (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-09-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul
Note: SCOPUS: ar.j
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in: Journal of cultural economics (2023) v.47 n° 3,p.359-406

Downloads: (external link)
https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/3713 ... ker_Brosens_2023.pdf Œuvre complète ou partie de l'œuvre (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/371370

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://hdl.handle.ne ... lb.ac.be:2013/371370

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ULB Institutional Repository from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Benoit Pauwels ().