Auction houses [ Trade ]
… of persons that were present of all qualities’. 5 Coffeehouses enabled the meeting of commerce and a post-courtly elite, as the merchants’ efforts to disseminate these artefacts were met by the amateurs’ discursive strategies to … on his rostrum orchestrated the biddings with his hammer. He had become a key agent in the growing pleasure the urban elite experienced in accumulating objects. The lots he attributed both fuelled polite conversation and provided the décor … in Cornhill coffeehouses, to accommodate merchants leaving the Royal Exchange at closing time. The audience, from elite collectors to the middling sort, sought a fashionable experience and while many stock-of-trade and dealer-to-dealer …
Art | Audience | Collecting | Commerce | Coffeehouses | Exhibitions
Encyclopedia