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This paper aims to analyze the evolution of the marketing of paintings and related visual products from its nascent stages in England around 1700 to the development of the modern art market by 1900, with a brief discussion connecting to the present.

Sources consist of a mixture of primary and secondary sources as well as a series of econometric and statistical analyses of specifically constructed and unique data sets that list nearly more than 50,000 different sales of paintings during this period. One set records sales of paintings at various English auction houses during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the second set consists of all purchases and sales of paintings recorded in the stock books of the late nineteenth-century London art dealer, Arthur Tooth, during the years of 1870/1871. The authors interpret the data under a commoditization model first introduced by Igor Kopytoff in 1986 that posits that markets and their participants evolve toward maximizing the efficiency of their exchange process within the prevailing exchange technology.

We found that artists were largely responsible for a series of innovations in the art market that replaced the prevailing direct relationship between artists and patron with a modern market for which painters produced works on speculation to be sold by enterprising middlemen to an anonymous public. In this process, artists displayed a remarkable creativity and a seemingly instinctive understanding of the principles of competitive marketing that should dispel the erroneous but persistent notion that artistic genius and business savvy are incompatible.

A similar marketing analysis could be done of the development of the art markets of other leading countries, such as France, Italy and Holland, as well as the current developments of the art market.

The same process of the development of the art market in England is now occurring in Latin America and China. Also, the commoditization process continues in the present, now using the Internet and worldwide art dealers.

This is the first article to trace the historical development of the marketing of art in all of its components: artists, dealers, artist organizations, museums, curators, art critics, the media and art historians.

THE WHITEHAVEN PUBLIC LIBRARY, in common with most municipal public libraries, has built up over the years a fairly comprehensive collection of books and pamphlets on the history of the community and surrounding area which answer most local queries, but in addition there are notebooks and letter files that form a sort of department of dead ends, queries that have petered out. Families die out and their personal papers are destroyed, or they move away and take their records with them; accidents happen to church records so that there is a gap of greater or lesser magnitude just at the point at which one is interested. There are dozens of ways in which one can come up against a stone wall, and find further progress impossible. Then some time later, sometimes years later, a clue or the answer will turn up.

Such librarians as are able to get away from their libraries are now enjoying a respite from the severe round of the year; and we wish them all the renewal of health and energy which should result from holidays well spent. We are quite aware that many are not in a position to enjoy such a privilege of rest; want of staff, the scarcely diminished demand of the public, the prevalent lack of funds for personal purposes, and, in some cases, a disinclination almost morbid to take vacation in war‐time—these things will keep many in their usual places. At the same time we think the library service gains greatly if the librarian goes into “retreat” for a few weeks yearly. Daily labour in the same groove, however intense it may be, and perhaps because at present it is so intense, is apt to bring about a mild sort of coma which effectually reduces the average value of the worker. Change of scene and mode of life brings new ideas, and ideas are the things that librarians most need to‐day. We are therefore strong apologists for holidays for librarians even in war‐time.

IN the annual reports of many libraries in all parts of the country decreased issues are bewailed. True the decrease, in most cases, does not amount to much; but there it is, and in each annual report it has to be explained. And the explanation in most general favour at the moment is the double‐barrelled one of “picture‐palaces” and “cheap editions.” Whether or not this explanation is correct does not concern us greatly. But we must protest against the attitude being taken in so many places, that a decrease of any kind necessarily must be an evil. The work of a library cannot really be shewn by the total at the foot of a column of figures.

IN an address delivered recently before the members of the Library Assistants' Association, Mr. R. T. L. Parr, a Local Government Auditor, revived the suggestion that Public Libraries should be merged in the Education Authority. At first sight the suggestion seems reasonable. Public Libraries are a part and an important part, of the educational machinery of the country; a fact that the public are slow to acknowledge, if one can judge from the meagreness of the funds placed at the disposal of library authorities. Past efforts to increase generally the limited library rate of one penny in the pound have failed signally, while the unlimited general education rate has been rising steadily, without any great protests being made by rate‐payers. Why not, then, adopt Mr. Parr's suggestion, and drop all efforts to promote the new Libraries Bill, and instead favour an Education Bill, in which the necessary reforms for public libraries could be inserted? If this could be done without public libraries being placed under the control of the Board of Education, well and good, but, if not, it is advisable to pause and consider. For many years librarians have been endeavouring to organize their profession, and there is a great danger in the individuality of librarianship being swallowed up in general education. The work of the librarian is quite distinct from that of the teacher, and unless the librarian preserves his individuality he is lost. If public libraries are ever placed under the control of the Government, librarians would be well advised to see that they are specially administered on a professional basis, and not run by educationalists to whom the technique of librarianship is a thing unknown. An example of an attempt to combine librarianship with education is dealt with in the succeeding note. Apart from the idea of placing public libraries under the control of the Board of Education, a state of affairs that we do not recommend, librarians would do well to adopt Mr. Parr's hints, and talk more of the educational value of libraries, for it is in this direction that most influence can be brought to bear upon public thought.

OUR readers are sure to find the New Year, which we hope will be a prosperous one for them and for librarianship,an interesting one in many ways. From the standpoint of the Library Association it will see the attractive experiment of an Annual Conference which for the first time is to be held in June. Margate, the venue of this, can be spartan in that month; on the other hand, she can be delightful, and the crystal, bracing air of the town, unequalled anywhere in our isles, and the long days, which should be sunny, ought to send librarians back invigorated to the common work of libraries. The objection that June cannot be combined with late summer holidays, that it cuts across school and university terms, and so on, is sound enough, but the advantages seem to be equally clear. At any rate we hope that Margate will be a bumper conference.

Reports on a study designed to explore the effects of religion and religiosity on perceived risk in purchase decisions. Asserts that religious values represent the most basic element of a consumer′s cognitive world, and can be meaningfully related to lifestyles. Concludes that religious individuals tend to perceive higher risks in their purchase decisions.

What does the future have in store for our organization and for us? Will it be good, bad, indifferent? Will we plan effectively, make the right managerial decisions and live happily ever after? Or will we be undercut or wiped out by the twin monsters “tion” and “sion”—competition, regulation, inflation, recession, pollution, or atomic explosion?

As the result of the increased postal rates and costs of production caused by the war, the Subscription Rates and Sales Prices of the BRITISH FOOD JOURNAL have been raised as understated:—