The Making of Art Markets: Collection, Display and Artistic Exchange from a Historical Perspective

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue invites contributions that examine the historical formation and development of art markets. Moving beyond understandings of markets as fixed or purely economic systems, it seeks contributions that foreground the processes and cultural contexts through which art markets are made, negotiated and transformed over time. It also aims to consider how diverse forms of artistic production and circulation become integrated within market structures, spanning fine and decorative arts as well as commercial visual cultures. In doing so, this Special Issue aims to highlight the historically contingent ways in which categories of value, taste and artistic significance are constructed and reconfigured, and how regional, urban or institutional specialisations can generate distinctive competitive advantages that shape the circulation of objects, skills and knowledge across different contexts.

Focus, Scope and Purpose

The Special Issue is grounded in the history of art markets broadly conceived, from Classical Antiquity to their global and digital configurations in the twenty-first century. It welcomes contributions from all geographical regions and time periods, encouraging comparative, transregional and interdisciplinary approaches. The issue seeks to examine how art markets are formed through the interaction of commerce, consumption and taste. It also considers the roles of agents and infrastructures, including artists, dealers, collectors, institutions, intermediaries and audiences, as well as the uneven geographies and differentiated capacities that structure market development.

We particularly welcome contributions addressing the following:

• The formation and transformation of art markets across diverse historical and geographical contexts;
• The role of fine and decorative arts within systems of consumption and display;
• Artistic exchange and circulation across regions, continents and cultural systems, including both mass-produced and unique works of art;
• The interrelation of markets, consumption practices, collecting cultures and modes of display;
• The emergence of regional specialisations, competitive advantages and centres of expertise within art markets;
• The construction and negotiation of hierarchies of value, taste and artistic meaning within market contexts.

Aims and Contribution

This Special Issue aims to contribute to the expanding field of art market studies by offering historically grounded and globally oriented perspectives on these themes. By foregrounding the “making” of art markets, the issue encourages reflection on how markets emerge, stabilise and transform and how they intersect with broader cultural, economic and intellectual histories. It also promotes comparative and transregional approaches that attend to the diversity of artistic production and circulation without presupposing fixed categorical divisions. Special attention will be given to contributions that integrate decorative arts, and other historically marginalised artistic forms, as well as to analyses of how regional specialisations and concentrations of expertise structure market dynamics over time.

Submission Procedure

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200–400 words summarising their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editors (luis.afonso@letras.ulisboa.pt) or to the Arts editorial office (arts@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo a double-blind peer-review.

Bibliographic resources

Boll, D., 2024. Art and its market. Berlin, Hatje Cantz.

Duarte, A., Pérez-Ibañez, M. (eds.), 2023. The art market and the global south, Leiden, Brill.

Huemer, C., Koja, S. (eds.), 2026. Dealing in Splendour. A history of the European art market, Berlin, De Gruyter.

Huemer, C., Stammers, T., 2025. “Perspectives on the study of the art market”. Journal of the History of Collections, 37 (2), pp. 215-220.

Lazarro, E., Moureau, N., Turpin, A., (eds.), 2021. Researching art markets. Past, present and tools for the future, London, Routledge.

Ma, L., 2023. China’s Art Market since 1978. Regional entrepreneurship and global impact, Cham, Palgrave.

Robertson, I. Chong, D., Afonso, L. (eds,), 2025. Global art markets, History and current trends, London, Routledge.

Dr. Luís Urbano Afonso
Prof. Dr. Adriana Turpin
Dr. Allan Madden
Prof. Dr. Filip Vermeylen
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Arts is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• art markets
• history of collecting
• display
• artistic exchange
• decorative arts
• material culture
• consumption practices
• cultural circulation
• global art history
• regional specialisation
• art historiography