| Arising out of a study of the seventeenth-century engraver-dealer-diplomat Michel le Blon, this dissertation confronts a fundamental question: Was such a combination of diplomatic and artistic involvement an anomaly or a paradigm? Did Le Blon represent a seventeenth-century type of dealer-diplomat and, if so, what evidence is there beyond the oft-cited example of Rubens for the existence of such a model?; In seeking the interconnected nature of artistic and diplomatic agency in a significant sector of the Northern European elite art trade of this period, this dissertation pursues a broader context for the dealer-diplomat considering not only individual figures and case studies but also artwork as the object of agency. Following an indepth analysis of the Rubens-Buckingham deal of the late 1620s, perhaps the best-known and best-documented instance of such interconnections, the dissertation turns to types of agency. Successive chapters analyze the use of diplomats as art agents, their role in the employment of artists, and the particularly telling instances of professional dealers who functioned as diplomats. Attention then turns to the object, studied in turn in the context of the diplomatic occasion, as a form of diplomatic currency, and as a cover for diplomat maneuvering.; Drawing on this panoply of case studies, a final chapter looks at the broader significance of agency studies for our understanding of seventeenth-century collecting and patronage. Here is discussed not only the obvious contribution made by such agents in the spread of objects and artistic concepts, but the pivotal role they played in the positioning of artists and artwork in the Northern European market and, more specifically, in the construction of seventeenth-century court collections. |
