Masters of Masterpieces: Social Mobility and Elites’ Art Ownership Dynamics

Wealth flows of top-notch elites reflect the socioeconomic structural changes of the times. Pareto’s theory of circulation of elites questions whether and how wealth flows from old elites to new ones, from political elites to economic ones, and vice versa. We adopt a novel approach to trace wealth flows of pre-modern social elites by tracking masterpiece artwork ownership dynamics, by means of 42,948 collection stamps on 8,555 masterpiece artworks in historical China (from the 8th century Tang dynasty until the fall of the Qing empire in 1911). The masterpieces tended to flow from higher to lower social classes within the same dynasty, whereas dynastic changes, often re-centralized art ownership to top-notch political elites. Wealthy classes without political power increasingly acquired the masterpiece artworks from those with political power, validating the theory of elite circulation in pre-modern societies from a wealth perspective. Masterpieces increasingly flowed from higher to lower social classes in regions with higher social mobility. The results are robust when controlling for political turmoil, governance instability, and social unrest. We advance our understanding of elite mobility and transition between political and economic elites by creating a new method to evaluate wealth flows in pre-modern societies where modern indicators are not available.