ABSTRACT

By the late seventeenth century, it is generally agreed, the demand for paintings in Britain began to exceed the available supply. The burgeoning art market of the eighteenth century gradually met these demands, the argument continues, encouraged by 'rampant commercialism', the growth of a consumer society, and an emerging culture of politeness. Various institutional obstacles which had halted progress during earlier decades were overcome from the 1690s onwards. Foremost amongst these was the alleged prohibition of imported paintings, maintained, it is supposed, to protect the artisanal interests of the Painter-Stainers' Company. In addition, the visual arts suffered from excessive reliance on the patronage of an impoverished court, as well as opposition from a protestant church which disapproved of the display of art. John Brewer has recently taken up this historiography and integrated it with contemporary discourse centring on the politics of culture; the unreconstructed, somewhat Whiggish emphasis on the commercialisation of leisure and cultural production, he suggests, derives from 'the account of the economic and social historians'.'