Bidding Better Online in Belgium: The Value of Auction House Expertise during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In this article, we present our analysis of how one of Belgium’s largest auction houses has creatively dealt with the forced transition to online auctions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews and participant observation conducted at Bernaerts Auctioneers in Antwerp over a period of three months between February and April 2021, we show how the auction house has succeeded at maintaining relations with its clients and the public while exclusively moving its sales online. Our specific focus was on the mediation of expertise. Drawing on recent publications from the fields of economic sociology and anthropology, we analyzed how expert narratives of origin, authenticity, and uniqueness are communicated online to affect an object’s auction value. Based on our empirical research, which also includes narrative analyses of Bernaerts Auctioneers’ internet publication Prelude, as well as content shared online via social media, we argue that expert knowledge and practices of expertise are resilient and—contrary to what neoclassical economic theory might suggest—that they continue to be central to negotiations of value, as well as in online auctions.

Crypto Collectibles, Museum Funding and OpenGLAM: Challenges, Opportunities and the Potential of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) make it technically possible for digital assets to be owned and traded, introducing the concept of scarcity in the digital realm for the first time. Resulting from this technical development, this paper asks the question, do they provide an opportunity for fundraising for galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM), by selling ownership of digital copies of their collections? Although NFTs in their current format were first invented in 2017 as a means for game players to trade virtual goods, they reached the mainstream in 2021, when the auction house Christie’s held their first-ever sale exclusively for an NFT of a digital image, that was eventually sold for a record 69 million USD. The potential of NFTs to generate significant revenue for artists and museums by selling effectively a cryptographically signed copy of a digital image (similar to real-world limited editions, which are signed and numbered copies of a given artwork), has sparked the interest of the financially deprived museum and heritage sector with world-renowned institutions such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Hermitage Museum, having already employed NFTs in order to raise funds. Concerns surrounding the environmental impact of blockchain technology and the rise of malicious projects, exploiting previously digitised heritage content made available through OpenGLAM licensing, have attracted criticism over the speculative use of the technology. In this paper, we present the current state of affairs in relation to NFTs and the cultural heritage sector, identifying challenges, whilst highlighting opportunities that they create for revenue generation, in order to help address the ever-increasing financial challenges of galleries and museums.

MINIATURE COLUMNS OF BMAC IN EUROPEAN ONLINE AUCTIONS: OPPORTUNITIES FOR USE IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

The paper is devoted to the consideration of the possibilities of using artifacts from private collections that are sold at European online auctions in scientific research. As an example, the data from the website of the world’s largest auction house Sotheby’s are analyzed. The description of 18 artifacts (miniature columns from Bactria) is given. Such artifacts are cylindrical or biconical shaped stone products with gutters on the bases and sides. The main difficulties when referring to this type of sources in scientific research are such aspects as lack of certification, the problem of authenticity and verification of information, the region of origin, incomplete information. Nevertheless, the analyzed objects fit into the cultural stereotypes of the BMAC and find complete analogies in the well-documented and stratified sits of this cultural area, which is a certain basis for their authenticity. Therefore, despite the noted nuances, it is concluded that it is necessary to take into account such artifacts in scientific research. Keywords: artifacts, BMAC, miniature columns, private collections, online auctions

Manuscript of "The Fight".

Hazlitt was the greatest of the Romantic essayists, and "The Fight" has to be the best of his countless essays. This fugitive leaf has been missing since the manuscript left the ownership of the Hazlitt family in the early 20th century and turned up in an auction house in Falls Church, Virginia, in 2015.

Banksy – Creator, Rebel and Provocator

Banksy is an anonymous England-based street artist, vandal, political activist, and film director, active since the 1990s. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling technique. His works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.Over the last few years, Banksy‘s name has become increasingly popular, especially through his recent, highly provocative works and appearances. In 2018, at Sotheby‘s Auction House, his famous work „The Girl with the Balloon“ was auctioned at $ 1.4 million. As the lead auctioneer‘s hammer hit, a beeping sound caught everyone‘s attention to Banksy‘s work, which slowly began to slide down and shredded narrow long strips in front of the astonished glances of onlookers. The scandal has aroused great public interest. On the next day, Banksy posted on Picasso a social media quote – „The urge to destroy is also a creative urge“. A few days later, the owner of the shredded work exhibited it in the museum, already renamed „Love is in the Bin.“ The work is currently worth twice as much in its present form, as a concept contemporary work, of its original value. Who is Banksy – a rebel art creator or just a provocateur with quality PR?

Leonardo's Salvator Mundi and the Collecting of Leonardo in the Stuart Courts

In Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi and the Collecting of Leonardo in the Stuart Courts the ‘Three Salvateers’—Robert Simon, Martin Kemp and Margaret Dalivalle—give a first-hand account of the discovery of the lost Renaissance masterpiece; from its purchase for $1,175 in a New Orleans auction house in 2005, to the worldwide media spectacle of its sale to a Saudi prince for $450 million in 2017. A behind-the-scenes view of the painstaking processes of identification, consultation, scientific analysis, conservation, and archival research that underpinned the attribution of the painting to Leonardo, the book presents a consideration of the place of the painting in Leonardo’s body of work. Exploring the meaning of the painting in terms of Renaissance theology, it considers the identity of its original patron or intended recipient. Unravelling networks of early modern art dealers and collectors in Europe, it traces the emerging reception of Leonardo during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was in Enlightenment Britain that the idea of Leonardo as artist–scientist took hold of the public imagination. This book examines the ‘invention’ of Leonardo through the unique prism of the Stuart courts. The documented presence of three paintings of Christ attributed to Leonardo in the vicinity of the seventeenth-century British Royal Collection is both extraordinary and perplexing. Today, Leonardo’s five-hundred-year-old Salvator has not yet disclosed its secret history.