Risks in Renaissance Art
Production, Purchase, and Reception

This Element represents the systematic study of risks as applied to Renaissance art and classifies losses into those risks.

Jonathan K. Nelson (Author), Richard J. Zeckhauser (Author)

9781009476614, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 March 2024

106 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.2 cm, 0.31 kg

'This book prompts new thinking about Renaissance failure and loss … that risk was a significant factor in Renaissance art-making becomes abundantly clear. Indeed, it is impressive that painters succeeded at all, given the many obstacles that they faced before they had even picked up a brush. Ultimately, this book raises important questions about the structures that underline artmaking in the early modern period, and how risk in equal measures motivated and deterred artists.' Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Renaissance Quarterly

This Element represents the first systematic study of the risks borne by those who produced, commissioned, and purchased art, across Renaissance Europe. It employs a new methodology, built around concepts from risk analysis and decision theory. The Element classifies scores of documented examples of losses into 'production risks', which arise from the conception of a work of art until its final placement, and 'reception risks', when a patron, a buyer, or viewer finds a work displeasing, inappropriate, or offensive. Significant risks must be tamed before players undertake transactions. The Element discusses risk-taming mechanisms operating society-wide: extensive communication flows, social capital, and trust, and the measures individual participants took to reduce the likelihood and consequences of losses. Those mechanisms were employed in both the patronage-based system and the modern open markets, which predominated respectively in Southern and Northern Europe.

1. Understanding risks in the renaissance
2. Production risks: sources and their control
3. Reception risks: inappropriate iconography and substandard skill
4. Risky business: northern images after the reformation, by Larry Silver
5. Three tales of trust and risk reduction
References.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]