ABSTRACT
John Michael Montias’ Artists and Artisans in Delft (1982) inspired numerous studies on the art market in the Netherlands during the seventeenth century. A number of these are wholly, or partially devoted to the prices of paintings, using data from assessments found in probate inventories, auction results, and lottery lists. However, the data from these sources are ambiguous. First, prices for work by certain masters vary widely, even within one source. Second, the descriptions of paintings in these sources are often so vague that no definite explanation can be given for the reasons for those discrepancies, such as differences in size, quality of workmanship, or even of the exact subject. Third, the brevity of these descriptions makes it difficult to connect the listed works with known paintings. Moreover, the sums we encounter in property assessments and auction books do not directly relate to the prices that buyers would pay artists for their work. We should therefore only use these data to ascertain the value of a painting at a certain moment in time and under specific conditions. The amounts mentioned in these sources are no indication for the price of a painting paid by its first owner, with the exception of the lottery lists, which may well indicate what private buyers were accustomed to paying.
