The question whether or not seventeenthcentury painters such as Rembrandt and Rubens created the paintings which were later sold under their names, has caused many a heated debate. Much is still unknown about the ways in which paintings were produced, assessed, priced, and marketed. For example, did contemporary connoisseurs expect masters such as Rembrandt to paint their works entirely by their own hand? Who was credited with the ability to assess paintings? How did a painting’s price relate to its quality? And how did connoisseurship change as the art market became increasingly complex? The contributors to this essential volume trace the evolution of connoisseurship in the booming art market of the seventeenth- and eighteenth centuries. Among them are the renowned Golden Age scholars Eric Jan Sluijter, Hans Van Miegroet and Neil De Marchi. It is not to be missed by anyone with an interest in the Old Masters and the early modern art market.

Anna Tummers is Curator of Old Mastersat the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem.Koenraad Jonckheere is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Amsterdam.

Table of Contents - 6Determining Value on the Art Market in the Golden Age - 8'By His Hand': the Paradox of 17th-Century Connoisseurship - 32Supply and Demand: some Notes in the Economy of the 17th-Century Connoisseurship - 70'Painters pencell move not without that musicke': proces of Southern Netherlandish Painted Altarpieces between 1585 and 1650 - 98The Painter versus the Connoisseur? The Best Judge of Pictures in 17th-Century Theory and Practice - 128The Rise of the Dealer-Auctioneer in Paris: Information and Transparnancy in a Market for Netherlandish Paintings - 150Plates - 177