University of Edinburgh Collecting and Art Market Research Cluster

Please join us on Tuesday 15 December 2020 - 5:30-6:45PM GMT for a lecture and discussion with Dr Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth titled ‘Sèvres-mania’: Record-Breaking Auctions and a Court Case between Wertheimer & Goode

‘Duels between collectors of the antique are frequent. One of the most sensational was that between a member of the Rothschild family and the late Lord Dudley over a Sèvres vase’.

This talk establishes the distinctly competitive market for ‘old’ Sèvres in the late-nineteenth century. Firstly, it will examine some of the key figures who battled against each other at auction frequently breaking records (as well as vases!). Secondly, it considers a court case which occurred in February 1882 and involved a disagreement over the authenticity of a pair of Sèvres rose du barry seaux. These were sold as genuine by the Jewish dealer Samson Wertheimer (1811-1892) and his son Asher Wertheimer (d.1918) to William J. Goode (1831-1892) for Goode’s private Sèvres collection in December 1880. Although the court case was known as a cause célèbre at the time, it has been subsequently forgotten in scholarship. Nonetheless it opens up new lines of enquiry regarding the epistemology, and indeed reliability of ceramics connoisseurship during the 1880s in Britain.

Dr Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth is an art historian who specialises in the histories of collecting and displaying European decorative arts (1650-1850). She has recently been appointed as the new 17th and 18th Century Curator of Ceramics and Glass at the V&A Museum, London. Since September 2018, Caroline has worked as a Lecturer on the History of Design Masters with the V&A and the Royal College of Art, where she is a postgraduate supervisor and runs MA courses on collecting and the Material Culture and Design of the ‘British’ Country House.

Caroline gained her PhD at the University of Leeds in 2019, where she continues to be a Visiting Research Fellow. She has been a DECR Chair for the Association for Art History, sits on the Board of the French Porcelain Society, is a founding member of the Society for the History of Collecting, and a Committee Member of the English Ceramics Circle.

This interdisciplinary Collecting and Art Market Research Cluster welcomes all those interested in collecting, the art market and related issues. The cluster provides a forum for discussion and presentation through holding regular seminars, workshops and talks by invited speakers, as well as Edinburgh-based researchers – both students and staff, and from disciplines as diverse as art history, business and sociology. Individuals have the opportunity to present their latest findings to a specialist audience in a relaxed environment.

Please note this session will be hosted via Zoom. Once you have registered, you will receive a link/login details to join the session. Please note that by registering you agree to being recorded.

To learn more about the Collecting and Art Market Research Cluster or to read about future events, please visit:

https://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/research/collecting-and-art-market-research-cluster

To join our mailing list, please write to marykate.cleary@ed.ac.uk or frances.fowle@ed.ac.uk.

Please also join the Cluster for the forthcoming TIAMSA (The International Art Market Studies Association) conference on Museums and the Art Market which will be held at ECA and the National Galleries of Scotland on 15-17 July 2021.

https://www.artmarketstudies.org/events/tiamsa-conference-2020/