Comparisons

• Rubens, Alex the Great Visiting the Studio of Apelles
• Zoffany, Chas Townley and his Friends

Rubens and Townley were both European collectors of antiquities. Rubens painting of Alexander the Great situates him in a contemporary seventeenth-century setting, complete with the type of paintings which Rubens collected and a view of the ‘Pantheon’ addition to his home. Likewise, Zoffany’s painting of Townley places the eighteenth-century collector within a set of such elite gentlemen who were continuing and expanding the purchase of antiquities, even though they themselves are no longer artists. He is shown in his London home, filled with the most important of his acquisitions. 

Key Topics

The role of collectors and collecting in the history of art. Collections founded on both commission and purchase.

• Aristocratic commissions: medieval European commissions of illuminated manuscripts acted as visible demonstrations of status.

• Commercial prosperity: the mercantile middle-class amassed collections, many inspired by the new spirit of scientific enquiry, especially in the Netherlands (c. 500-1750.)

• Treasures of the past: well-born Enlightenment travelers in Europe brought examples of ancient art home; many of these private collections later formed the basis of national museums.

• Emulating Europe: nineteenth-century American Industrial barons started important collections of their own, some of which are open to the public today.

• Collecting by force: war provides an opportunity for the victor’s cultural enrichment through looting.

• Cross-fertilization: artists benefit from collecting, as seen in the influence of Japanese prints on nineteenth-century French art, and of Europe on Japan.

• Profit: the rise of the modern art market and a new kind of collector.