ABSTRACT
This article presents unexplored documentary evidence concerning the organisation of artistic production: Isabel of Castile's legislation regarding the establishment of fairs and her legislation regarding tax exemption to foreign, particularly northern, artists who relocated and established workshops in Spain. I hope to be able to draw from this material some indications of how the art market functioned in fifteenth/sixteenth-century Spain. My main objective is to show how art objects were bought and sold in Castile during Isabel of Castile's reign as Queen of Spain (1474-1504.)
Although the principal patron of northern artists was the Spanish court, this article shall explain how prosperous towns people of Castile could have bought their works at duty-free fairs supported by Queen Isabel of Castile (1451-1504). Patrons could buy directly from an artists' or merchants' stock at a fair. It seems important to discuss the significance of these great fairs as market for works of art.
