Art sales and attributions: the 1852 National Gallery acquisition of The Tribute Money by Titian

Abstract

Using a broad range of previously unexplored sources such as sales catalogues, newspaper articles, parliamentary reports, and National Gallery documents and correspondence, this paper reconstructs the commercial trajectory and critical reception of a painting by Titian, The Tribute Money, when the London National Gallery purchased it in 1852. It demonstrates that the stylistic dispute was only one aspect that contributed to the nineteenth-century attribution history of this painting. In fact, the modalities of its sale at auction, and a growing suspicion towards art dealers, contributed to the negative evaluation of The Tribute Money’s authenticity. The broader methodological contribution of this paper is the complication of the relationship of cause and effect between quality and prices in art sales, and the impact that sale prices can have on an artist’s subsequent historiography.

Keywords

• Titian
• William Woodburn
• National Gallery
• art market
• art prices
• connoisseurship
• attributions