Artium Quaestiones
Thematic Issue
Collecting in the North: Patterns, Networks, and Displays from the British Isles to Scandinavia and the Baltic Region
The present call for contributions aims to gather articles studying different aspects of collecting in Northern Europe up to World War I. The geographical area we intend to consider includes cultural contexts as diverse as the British Isles, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, and the Baltic region. We are interested in both private and public collections of drawings, paintings, prints, sculptures, artifacts, and memorabilia.
We intend to investigate three main aspects of collecting practices. First, the patterns of collecting that help to understand how collections are built and what models collectors rely on in assembling them. Crucial to our scope is the question of the sources and the references that are called into question through the practices of collecting. We would like to include essays that investigate, for instance, how visual and scholarly references are used and appropriated, but also how they are adapted to conform to collectors’ scopes and needs.
Secondly, we intend to cast light on the structure and development of the networks that make the formation of collections possible. Particular attention will be paid here to the interactions that determine the development of collections as well as to the individuals who gravitate to them. There is a need to research the diversity of a multi-faceted world which is not only bound to art dealers and collectors. We intend to consider the multiple actors linked to the act of collecting such as advisors, patrons, scholars working for collectors, mediators, and all sorts of “in-between” professions facilitating the activities of sellers and buyers and their interaction.
In this issue we intend to discuss displays and the dissemination of collections. The core question here is what is it that collectors and institutions intend to do with their holdings and how their collections are circulated. What are the mechanisms that make the existence of collections known? Why are collections available (or not) to the public? What are the criteria? What visual and scholarly information do collectors and institutions want to disseminate? Here we consider documents as diverse as pictorial representations of displays, arrangements, catalogs, notebooks, brochures, and all printed material giving evidence of these collections.
Essays are expected to be published in the Autumn 2023 issue and to be submitted to a double-blind peer-review process. Proposals of a maximum of 300 words are to be sent to Michal Mencfel (mmencfel@amu.edu.pl) and Camilla Murgia (camilla.murgia@unil.ch) with a copy to aq.redakcja@amu.edu.pl by December 10th, 2022. Notice of acceptance of the contribution will be given as soon as possible in the following weeks. Essays of 6000-8000 words, with high resolution images (300 dpi) and permission to publish, will have to be sent by March 10th 2023.