Risks in Renaissance Art: Production, Purchase, and Reception

By Richard J. Zeckhauser and Jonathan K. Nelson

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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1009476610
• ISBN13: 9781009476614
• Release Date: March 2024
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 106 Pages
• Weight: 0.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"