Théodore Rousseau and the Rise of the Modern Art Market

Simon Kelly’s consummate study of Théodore Rousseau draws the reader deeply into the complex lived experience of this adventurous, under-examined painter of the French landscape, bringing to light as never before an entire world of making, selling and viewing art in mid-nineteenth-century France, just as the stage was set for the avant-gardes to come. * Thomas Crow, Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, USA *
Kelly’s book makes an important contribution, both to the history of French landscape painting and to recent scholarship on the modern art market. Far from being le grand refusé, Rousseau emerges as one of the most commercially shrewd artists of his generation, who used pioneering tactics to promote his often challenging and experimental style of painting. Unorthodox and independent-minded, he became an art market innovator, anticipating some of the strategies employed by the Impressionists. Written with a sensitive and curatorial eye, this fascinating book is based on extensive archival research and includes extracts from stockbooks and procès-verbaux, as well as letters from Rousseau to his patrons, dealers, critics and fellow artists. * Frances Fowle, Chair of Nineteenth-Century Art, University of Edinburgh and Senior Curator of French Art, National Galleries of Scotland, UK *
This is an excellent book and makes a very substantial contribution to our understanding of Rousseau's work...the book must emerge as a primary point of reference for scholars of 19th-century French painting, changes in the art market, and Rousseau's role within them. * Steven Adams, H-France (University of Hertfordshire, UK) *
The depth of research across Kelly’s book makes it an essential reference text for anyone working on the emergence of the art market in Paris. Kelly has highlighted numerous dealers, galleries, art spaces, and auctions that rarely figure in histories of the avant-garde. He shows that practices we have come to see as emblematic of impressionism in fact began much earlier… Kelly’s work helps us to continue to break down unilateral histories of modern art as a progression of independent agents and to study instead the structural conditions by which particular visions came to be celebrated. -- Kelly Presutti * Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide *