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means wealthy, and on an individual level, this reflects the fragility of their market.

Writing at the time, the former English Secretary of State, Dudley Carleton ‘noted as a singularity, the common inn where we dined, which hath divers rooms hung with tapestry, as sometime furnished with the best of hands’. The unprecedented variety in quantity and quality of artwork during this period has led many to distinguish commercialisation of the Dutch art market. The Guild of Saint Luke, established in 1648, reiterated this perception through its regulation of the market. Much like a craftsman, the main priority of most artists was to produce work that would turn a profit, rather than tailoring their style to the tastes of their patrons. In most cases, the artists were the social equals of their customers and in this sense, the prices of those such as Rembrandt and Dou can lead the historian astray. For the most part, like other markets, price was determined by a mechanism of cost for base materials and quantity demanded. The Dutch fin-de-siècle, Abraham Bredius, estimated that for every Dutch household, between 100 and 200 pieces would be on display, testifying to the extent to which production flourished. With such unprecedented variety of genres within one cultural identity many painters began to specialise. However, this was not a novel concept in Dutch culture as specialisation can is evident during the Truce Years (1609-1621) of the Eighty Years’ War, when Amsterdam became a hub of art trade, increasing demand for more efficient production. During the seventeenth century, the workshops of towns such as Antwerp would see a number of artists working on the same painting. One consequence of this was to increase production and artistic competition, meaning that the interface between artists and buyers became more important to ensure demand would be met. Erna Kok argues that ‘interaction amongst artists and art lovers could be regarded as a ‘symbiosis’…on the basis of social-economic and artistic motivations’ 19 . In the 1650s, there was approximately one painter for every 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants in the Dutch Republic 20 . The use of tonal painting characterised the innovative elements of the art market, likewise improving the productive potential of the market. 21 Yet the Guild of Saint Luke embodied the fragility, commercialisation and size of the art market. The endurance of a six year apprenticeship was enough of a risk to families during periods of high demand, due to the expense (around 100 guilders per year to study with Rembrandt or Dou). Yet the reward of an annual salary on average between 1,150 and 1,400 in the 1660s highlights the extent of economic expansion 22 . Recent scholarship has pointed to the events of 1672 in the Dutch Republic as the inevitable collapse of a fragile financial and political structure on which Dutch culture had depended 23 . The art market saw stead decline up to and beyond 1750. In 1672, which became known as rampjaar , or ‘disaster year’, the French King Louis XIV invaded the Republic, leading to a run on Dutch banks and the collapse of the Amsterdam Trade Exchange. As Prince William III and the Organist appealed to Spain and the Holy Roman Empire to finally drive out the French in 1778, the regents were ousted from power 24 and the Stadholderate was reinstated. The refusal of this new political regime to take on the burden of indirect tax drained a source of demand for non-necessity goods like artwork, despite relatively higher wages. It would be possible to identify the rampjaar as the point at which the fragile economic and political structure, on which the art market had been founded, began to disintegrate. Large numbers of some of the country’s finest art was shipped abroad as prices slumped and art dealers became bankrupt. England and Italy attracted some of the greatest Dutch artists of the previous half century. Beyond the 1670s, high rent and heavy taxation meant that real wages, in comparison to neighbouring countries were relatively low 25 . In 1679, the average wage in Holland was between 18 and 24 stuviers per day. As manufacturers faced a more stagnant economy, incomes and consumer 19 Erna Kok, Innovation through Rivalry. History Painting in Amsterdam 1635-1645 20 http://www.essentialvermeer.com/dutch-painters/dutch_art/ecnmcs_dtchart.html#.VQirso6sWSo 21 Michael North, ‘Art and Commerce’ pp. 134 22 Michael North, ‘Art and Commerce’ pp. 65 23 Israel, ‘The Dutch Republic’, Part III: The Later Golden Age (1647-1702), 1672: The Year of Disaster 24 Herbert H. Rowen, ‘ John de Witt, Statesman of the "True Freedom’ - Johan de Witte was lynched in 1672, supposedly on the order of Prince William III of Orange 25 According to a working paper by Federico Etro and Elena Stepanova in ‘ The Market for Painting in the Netherlands during the Seventeenth century’ (from the Department for Economics at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) the real wages in the Dutch Republic fell from 425 fl. in 1672 to 305 fl. in 1698. ISSN: 1827-3580 No. 16/WP/2013 pp. 4

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