This book tells the story of the people who shaped the modern art market and its institutions to maximize the financial potential of their product. This transformation resulted in a fundamental and lasting redefinition of art. It is based on contemporaneous sources - diaries, letters, newspapers, journals - and on extensive analyses of proprietary data related to the evolution of the modern art market in London between 1700 and 1900. It describes how local artists' groups and other stakeholders led by historic individuals deliberately constructed a new 'aura' for art as well as a new market infrastructure that liberated their creativity from the doctrinaire restrictions of the past. This monumental enterprise resulted in a radical and lasting change in the course of our cultural legacy and, ultimately, paved the way for the development of modern art. Along the way, it also established artworks as coveted and unregulated financial assets with values in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Thomas Bayer is Lecturer in Art History at Tulane University, USA.