Auction houses [ Trade ]
… cultural practice of both taste and valuation. 1 As the century unfolded, the auctions sales relocated from the Royal Exchange and its networks of wharfs and warehouses to the artistic clusters of Soho and Covent Garden and later on … Auctions at coffeehouses such as Tom’s in London, or Dick's in Dublin offered a unique mode of urban sociability and exchange for these artefacts, as explained by the bookseller and auctioneer Edward Millington in 1689: ‘I have of late … whereas they had mostly been held in the evening 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 …
Art | Audience | Collecting | Commerce | Coffeehouses | Exhibitions
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