ABSTRACT
Recent methodological studies tend to be highly critical of connoisseurs. ‘Lacking a social conscience, Bernard Berenson sought perfection of self in aesthetic sensibility’ (Brown 1979: 2). What more damning judgment of the most famous American connoisseur? And this by a sympathetic commentator. Connoisseurs are often thought to be but servants of the art dealers. This critical view is entirely mistaken. Connoisseurship is a great intellectual achievement, but in order to understand what connoisseurs do, it is necessary to link their interests with the broader concerns of art historians (see, for example, Wollheim 1987; 1973).
