Antique Dealers: the British Antique Trade in the 20th century, a cultural geography

这项为期30个月的研究项目旨在记录、绘制地图、分析背景并批判性地分析20世纪英国古董贸易的发展。该项目将在英国的背景下评估古董贸易的文化地理，同时考虑到其国际层面，特别是与欧洲和北美市场的关系。该项目将记录古董贸易，调查与古董贸易和古董交换和流通不断发展的商业做法有关的一系列研究问题，将这些做法置于社会、政治和经济背景下，并将其与古董消费不断演变的文化景观相对照。它将产生一些离散但相互关联的学术和面向公众的产出，包括编辑过的论文卷、一次会议和讲习班，以及一张突出经销商位置的网上互动(关键字可搜索)英国虚拟地图。使用GPS技术，并基于谷歌地图，互动地图将包括一致的缩略图信息和数据集，如交易日期和每家公司的传记信息；通过该公司手中的任何重要物品的图像；以及公共博物馆藏品(在英国、欧洲和美国)中任何物品的链接。该网站还将允许公众通过用户生成的内容参与研究项目，通过当地遗产协会和家庭历史团体了解人们对地方历史日益增长的兴趣。该项目的核心是利用以前未被探索的档案材料，对一些有影响力的英国经销商的历史进行离散的历史案例研究项目。一个基于对退休和半退休的英国贸易成员的采访的口述历史档案将被收集起来，作为更广泛的民族志研究的一部分，重点是最近的贸易历史，特别是20世纪最后几年古董贸易的转变。近年来，艺术史研究的重点发生了重大转变，对艺术品市场的机制和做法的关注不断涌现，并对艺术品市场的历史进行了几次重大调查。但是，尽管在收藏史方面对古董的研究很少，但英国古董贸易本身的历史仍然是一个被忽视的主题。19世纪古董贸易发展的初步图谱已经开始突显19世纪古董贸易发展的重要性，但就20世纪古董贸易而言，关注这一主题的期刊论文屈指可数。事实上，《20世纪商人回忆录》、已故的罗杰·华纳(Roger Warner)对20世纪40年代至80年代贸易的反思(2006年)和纪念Hotspur公司的《Hotspur：80年古董交易》(2004年)，仍然是关于20世纪贸易主题的唯一实质性文章，尽管这些文章来自贸易本身。因此，该项目将进一步关注古董商作为市场活跃主体的重要性，突出他们的社会经济和文化活动的重要性。它将引导人们关注古董贸易的历史和商业古董市场之间的关系，以及已建立的历史，如‘装饰艺术’的历史、收藏史和公共博物馆的历史。它还将提供一组新的数据，供今后的研究和调查建立基础，扩大对一系列学科和方法进行进一步分析的可能性。

This 30 month research project seeks to document, map, contextualize and critically analyse the development of the British antiques trade during the 20th century. The project will assess the cultural geography of the trade in antiques in a British context with a consideration of its international dimensions, especially the relationships to the European and North American markets. The project will document the trade in antiques, investigating a series of research questions related to the evolving business practices of the trade and the exchange and circulation of antiques, placing these practices into social, political and economic contexts and mapping these against the evolving cultural landscape of the consumption of antiques. It will result in a number of discrete, but interrelated academic and public-facing outputs, including an edited volume of essays, a conference and workshops, and a web-based interactive (keyword searchable) virtual map of Britain highlighting the locations of dealerships. Using GPS technology, and based on Google Maps, the interactive map will include consistent 'thumbnail' information and data sets, such as trading dates and biographical information for each firm; images of any significant objects that passed through the firm's hands; and links to any objects in public museum collections (in the UK, Europe and the USA). The website will also allow public participation in the research project through user-generated content, keying into the increasing interests of local histories through local heritage societies and family history groups. At the heart of the project will be discrete historical case study research projects into the history of a number of influential British-based dealerships utilizing previously unexplored archival material. An oral history archive based on interviews with retired and semi-retired members of the British trade will be assembled as part of a broader ethnographic study, concentrating on the more recent history of the trade, and in particular the transformation of the antique trade in the last few years of the 20th century. There has been a significant shift in emphasis in terms of art historical studies in recent years, with an emerging and consistent focus on the mechanisms and practices of the art market, and several major investigations into the history of the art market. But whilst there have been a small number of studies on antiques in terms of the history of collecting, the history of the British antiques trade itself remains a neglected subject. The preliminary mapping of the development of the 19th century antiques trade has already begun to highlight the significance of the development of the trade in the 19th century, but in terms of the 20th century trade there have been only a handful of published journal essays that have directed attention to this subject. Indeed, 'Memoirs of a 20th century dealer', the reflections on the trade in the period c.1940s-c.1980s by the late Roger Warner (2006), and 'Hotspur: Eighty Years of Antique Dealing', a celebration of the firm of Hotspur (2004), remain the only substantive pieces of writing on the subject of the 20th century trade, albeit emanating from the trade itself. This project will therefore direct further attention to the significance of antique dealers as active agents in the markets, highlighting the importance of their socio-economic and cultural practices. It will direct attention to the relationships between the history of the antique trade and the commercial antiques markets and established histories such as the history of 'decorative art', the histories of collecting, and the history of the public museum. It will also provide a new set of data that future studies and investigations can build upon, expanding the possibility of further analysis across a range of disciplines and approaches.