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Taste Endures! The Rankings of Roger de Piles (†1709) and Three Centuries of Art Prices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Kathryn Graddy
Kathryn Graddy*
Affiliation:
Fred and Rita Richman Distinguished Professor of Economics, Brandeis University, MS 021, 425 South Street, Waltham, MA 02454. E-mail: kgraddy@brandeis.edu.
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Abstract

Roger de Piles (1635–1709) was a French art critic who decomposed the style and ability of 58 different artists into areas of composition, drawing, color, and expression, rating each artist on a 20-point scale in each category. Based on evidence from two data sets that together span from the mid-eighteenth century to the present, this article shows that De Piles' overall ratings have withstood the test of a very long period of time, with estimates indicating that the works of his higher-rated artists achieved both greater returns and higher critical acclaim than the works of his lower-rated artists.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 73 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 766 - 791
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2013 

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Footnotes

The author would like to thank audiences at Brandeis, Suffolk, and the 2011 North American ACEI conference for helpful comments on this project. She would especially like to thank Alex Appleby, Denise Chisholm, Victor Ginsburgh, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, and Jonathan Unglaub for comments on this article. She is very grateful to Traci Gordon and Elona Rika for research assistance.

References

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