How the art market became what it is today
The art market has never developed in isolation. In a new book, former Gagosian director Valentina Castellani argues that its history is inseparable from the political, economic, and social forces that have repeatedly redrawn the field.
Trading Beauty: Art Market Histories from the Altar to the Gallery, out May 1, follows that argument across centuries. Castellani begins in the Middle Ages, when art was largely made on commission for the Catholic church and European monarchies. Painters, sculptors, and architects worked within guild structures and under contracts that set strict limits on materials, revisions, and even the terms of payment. The modern idea of the artist as an independent creator had not yet emerged.
That began to change in 1550, when Giorgio Vasari’s The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects helped introduce the notion of creative genius. Castellani presents that shift as more than a matter of reputation. It gave artists greater leverage, and it marked an early step toward the market structures that would later define the trade.
The next major break came after 1648, when the Dutch Republic became the first open art market. Freed from Catholic patronage and buoyed by mercantile prosperity, it created conditions for the professional art dealer to emerge. New buyers also changed what sold: landscapes, still lifes, and domestic interiors suited the tastes of a broader public, including the growing middle class.
From there, Castellani traces a familiar pattern. Dealers have repeatedly used social change to bring once-unfashionable art into the center of the market. Paul Durand-Ruel helped build demand for the Impressionists after they were shut out of the official French Salon. Joseph Duveen capitalized on new American wealth to elevate the market for European Old Masters. Leo Castelli and Ileana Sonnabend rode the postwar boom and consumer culture to advance Pop art.
The book also makes room for figures whose influence has often been underrecognized. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Edith Halpert, and Augusta Savage appear as examples of how market history is shaped not only by celebrated dealers, but also by stewards, advocates, and artists whose contributions were constrained by the conditions of their time.
Castellani’s larger point is simple, but consequential: valuation is never fixed. What the market rewards, and who gets to define taste, has always been in motion — and the forces behind that motion are often larger than art itself.
