Shifting Preferences. Prices for den Oude and den Helschen Breughel during the Long Eighteenth century

The art market is a useful indicator to examine shifts in preferences but still remains underexploited in art historical studies. By exploring the reception of Pieter Brueghel’s pictures, father and son, on the 18th and early 19th century art market, this paper empirically questions the market reception of a family affair, after it fell into oblivion for more than two centuries. The prices of works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Pieter Brueghel the Younger, sold between 1700 and 1840, were collected to create two price indices. These indices reveal that the demand for Breughelian pictures was particularly low during this period of disgrace. Several characteristics of pictures by Pieter I and Pieter II were nonetheless still attractive for buyers at the time. Prototypical scenes, the length of the catalogue notes, and the inclusion of quality labels in the note were likely to affect prices. Quality labels, in particular, were used as marketing tools to highlight the peculiarities of some lots and create product differentiation.