Why ConnoisseurshipMatters David Freedberg In 1998, in an
article intended to accompany hisgreat sr.tmmaon Flemish Art and
Archi-tecturein the Pelican History of Art series, Hans Vlieghe
commented on 'the significant increase in the number of new
contributions onseventeenth-centuryFlemishartsince 1960' .1 What he
did not note, of course, was that he himself wasresponsible for
much of this increase.He hasranged more widely in the field and
refi ned it more thoroughly than anyotherscholarint
hearea.Thirty-one years earlier,in 1967, he wrote: 'Ons beeld van
de onrwikkeling der Anrwerpse composirieschilderkunsr in de zevent
iende eeuw is, behalve Vt war het oeuvre van Rubens, Van
DyckenJordaensaangaat,weinigduidelijk. Voor eenbc:langrijk gedeelte
is dit re wijten aan hetfeic dac veclvandeschilderijendiedoor
Ancwerpseschilders van het tweede plan zowar in de schaduw van de
grote kunstcnaarstri rs van de Scheldestad werden uitgevoerd nooic
gepub-li ceerdzi jngeworden,jazichinheelwat gevallen onder foutieve
benamingen of als anon-ieme smkken in minder bekende kerken,
parti-culiere verzamelingen ofmoeilijk coegankelijke muscumdepors
bevinden.'2 In face, Vlieghe had already begun remedy-ing this
situation, andfromthe time of the epochmaking article in which he
made this statement,he secout eoclarifythe oeuvres of
thelesser-knownAntwerppaintersand bring them out of the shadows. He
rectified themistakesandfilledthelacunaewith
energy.Hescouredtheremotechurches,
penetratedtheprivatecollections,and
foundhiswayintotheobscuredepotsin order to reattribute the works
and refine or consolidatetheoeuvresof thethenlesser known
Flemishmasters.They were'lesser-known'then, but now weknow them
with vastlygreaterrefinementthanwhen Vlieghe fi rst began
publishing his articles, beginning with hisinvestigations of David
Teniers II and Ill precisely in 1960.3 'Her omsrellend gebrek
aanbehoorlijke infor-matie aangaande de Vlaamse schildersvan grote
religieuzeenhistorischetaferelen,dieinde XVIIeeeuwzowar opherrweede
plan hebben gewerkc,iseenmcrkwaard igfeit', he noted inthe second
of t he artjcles he pro-ducedin the annttS mirabilisthat was1967.4
Thiswasthearticleinwhichhealmost single-handedly laid the basis for
the creation of the oeuvre of an artist untilthen almost entirely
known from prints and documents, CornelisSchut.Beforethen,asHorse
WHYCONNOISSEURSHIPMATTERS29 GersonnotedinthePelicanHistoryof Art
volumewhichVlieghe'ssttmmareplaced,
Schutwasonlyknownforhisengravings, whilehispaimingswere'concealed
amongst ahoseof uncerrain attributions' .5 ] use as he would later
do in the case of many other vainters, Vlieghe sec ouc anumber of
secure attributions, which then formedthe basis forthe now
dearly-defined corpus. It was precisely in the area of history
painting -once, of coursethe most important of the genres, but now
most neglected of all- that Vlieghe made hismost significant
contribu-tions.He did so thanks to his incomparable combinationof
documentaryandvisual skills- justwhatBerenson,inhisclassic
essayonthetaskoftheconnoisseur demanded6- aswell,of course,ashis
keen senseof whothe important figuresoutside the greattrio ofRubens
van Dyck andJor-dacnsactuallywere.Our understandingof the visual
culture chat produced these three hasbeenimmeasurablyenhancedby
Vlieghe's own work. In this
senseconnois-seurshiphasactuallyenabledthestudyof
whatistoooftenregardedasthemodern
replacementoftraditionalarthistory, namelychat of 'visual culture',
ad iscipline thatpretendstobenewbutinfactrests entirely on some of
the most characteristic skills and interests of art history.
Indeed,al readyinthefirstofthe benchmarkarticlesfromjustcited,
Vlieghemadefi.wdamcntaladditions and refinementstOtheoeuvresof
Janvan
Boeckhorst,TheodorBoeyermans,Eras-musQuellinus,CornelisSchut,Pieter
Thijs,TheodoorvanThulden,andthe neglectedhiscory paimings of
Cornelis de Vos.7Manyof thesearenamestowhich
Vliegheoftenreturned,frequentlywith trenchanteffect,asi
nhisnotableresolu-tion of the problem of the Cardiff cartoons
oncesoopti misticallyarcribmedeo Rubensbygivingthemdecisivelyto Jan
van Boeckhorst,8 his fundamental and still suggestivearticle,
ontheRomanyearsof CornelisSchut,9andtherichworkon Erasmus
Quellinus, Rubens's 'primer offi-cial'.10 Il is ameasure of the fr
ui t fulness of Vlieghe'swork that allof these
contribu-tionsledtofully-fledgedmonographsby othersontheseartists-
i ncludingthe important1990exhibitionson Jan van Boeckhorst, 1
'IKatlijne van der Stighelen's outstandingmonographonCornelisde
Vos, 12 andthethoroughexaminationof thecareer andworkof
CornelisSchutby GerrrudeWilmers, 13tomentiononlya
few.Ontheotherhand,whenit cameto ErasmusQuellinus,Vl ieghepoi
ntedly expandedandcorrectedthe picrure given by J ean-Pi erre de
Bruyn in his monograph onthatpai nter.14 Typicalishiscomment
ontheHomagetoMosesafterthePassage throttgh the Red Sea.Mter
pointing out that De Bruyn only mentioned three of the four oil
sketches inthe cycle, Vlieghe promptly
locatesthefourthsketch,andthenadds laconicallyanddevastatingly'Deze
schilderi jen zijn echcer typisch vroeg werk van ] an van den
Hoecke' .15 How few of us could immediatelyidentify a ]an van den
Hoecke,letalonebesureof histypical early works!Sotoo inmany other
cases, ~ utoo numeroustOmention. Throughout the
sixtiesandseventies,Vliegheclearedthe ground- andtheair-
togiveussharp profiles of many artists,ranging from Gas-par
deCrayer,on which he wrotehisfun-damentalmonograph, 16
rightthroughto lesser figures such as Arnout Vinckenborch
andArcusWolfforc,whoseworkwould have been entirely loseeothe
history of art had he notidentified and thereby resuscit-atedthem.
17 Whotherefore,looking at the work of
HansVlieghecouldsaythatconnoisseur-ship doesnot matter? Or chat is
somehow a peripheral task? It lies at the very core of the history
of art. In 1719 Jon a than Richardson published
hisTwoDist"ourses,inwhichhe set out the
aimsandprinciplesofconnoisseurship.18
Thesewereitsfoundationalarguments, though of courseits practice
alreadyhada longhisrory.ForRichardson, as,probably, formost
practitioners, connoisseurship had three basic aims:firstly the
making of judg-ments of quality ('the Goodness of a Picture'
asRichardsonput it),secondlythe assign-ment of hands, andthirdly
the distinguish-ingof originalsfromcopies(including,of
course,theidentification of forgeries).19 In the second of the
TwoDiscottrses Richardson set out why connoisseurshipwasa suitable
task for genrlemen20- a designation which has come to cause much
trouble for the sub-sequent reputation of connoisseurship. Now
thepresentdiscussionwillnotchieflybe concerned with judgements of
quality, if at all.It willbeconfinedtothoseaspecrsof
connoisseurship in whichVlieghe excelled, namelythe establishment
of the oeuvres of masters,and, paripasstt,thedistinctions between
originals and copies, and the iden-tification of forgeries.These
aspectsof con-noisseurshipdonot,inandof themselves, have much rodo
with the determination of the artistic worth of a painting or
sculpture (vaguethoughthispursuitmaybe),but offer the possibility
of arriving at falsifiable andtherefore sc::curc::coudusiuus.
Itiseasyenough,primafacie,togive examplesof
whyconnoisseurshipmatters, of whereithasbeensatisfactorilyusedto
establish a corpus of works and where it has usefully identified
copies and fakes.21 These activitieshaveaki ndofself-evident,
(thoughsometimesinflated)worth.l tis even easier eo say why
connoisseurship does not matter, or whereitisflawedor corrupt .
Manyof us,enjoyingapainting,would agree that it really doesnot
matter from an aesthetic point of view whether the Dresden
VemtswaspaintedbyGiorgione or byTit-ian, the Polish Rider by
Rembrandt or Drost, rhe \floman in the Red Hat in Washington by
Vermeerorbyanineteenthcenturyfaker. But if we feel - or chink
wefeel - so secure about the aesthetic merits of a pai nting that
it doesnot matter who actually painted it,
thenitisimporranralsotoconsiderthe strong counter-arguments in
Nelson Good-man's Languages ofArt. In this book-
insuf-ficientlyreadbyart historians - Goodman argued powerfully
that simple knowledge of thefactthataworkisanoriginal(and
mtttatiJmzttandisnot afake,orbysomeone else) is as critical a
factor as any other in our estheticjudgment aboutit. 22 This formed
part of Goodman'scomplex andbrilliantly argued viewthat the
cognitiveisanessen-tial part of the esthetic. One of
theeasiestargumentseomake against connoisseurship, eosay whyit does
notmatter,istopointtothesocialand
financialpressuresonjudgment,particu-larlyjudgments of attribution.
There isno shortageof examplesof thewayinwhich financialpressure
and inducement influence the upward attribution of a work. There
are coomanyof suchcases,andtheyareoften shaming.Markets -
galleries,dealers,auc-tionhouses- exerciseunduepressures.
TlieyiuJuce expensLOmakejudgments - both of quality andof
attribution - that suit their own pocketsrather than the pur-poses
of disinterested scholarship. Thisweaknessofconnoisseucship -
though Idonorbelieve it isaninherent one- is closely related, if
only because of its WHYCONNOISSEURSHIPMATTERS31
socialdimension,totheseveralwaysin
whichconnoisseurshipmaybefetishizecl. Thetotemizationof
thesuperioreyeisa familiar enough phenomenon, and so too is
theenhancedsocialstandingsometimes achieved through it. Bernard
Berenson pro-videstheclassicexample.Hesortedpic-tures out, spoke
eloquently about them, was thoroughly corrupted by dealers,
andoper-atedfromachicvillaintheTuscanhills, which both enhanced his
own social stand-ingandthatof thosewhovisitedit.But few,if
any,would now admit that connois-seurship shouldmatter because it
makes one abettergentleman,asJonathanRichard-santhought.
23Certainlymostof uscan agreethat the skills of connoisseurship can
makeoneabetterarthistorian,asHans Vlieghe has consistently shown
throughout hiscareer(hewouldhavebeenaperfect gentleman anyway). But
let us return to the second and third
criteriaforconnoisseurship,namelythe
abilitytomakejudgmentsaboutauthor-ship (that is, about attribution
and the abil-ity torecognizehands),andto distinguish true
fromfalse. Alot of ink- quite a lot of good ink in fact- hasbeen
devoted to these. The Morel-lian method of making attributions on
the basis of those features of a painting that are unconscious
rather than conscious -finger-nails,roes,tearclucts,earlobesandsoon
-has actually yielded many good results over the years. 24 At the
sametime, the dangers andthepitfallsofattributionbythis
methodareobvious,sinceearlobesand
tearductsarearguablynotalwaysuncon-scious;and
wishfulthinkingsooften does come inco the matter- the wishto assign
a name,tomaketheworkbebyasuperior rather thanby aninferior
master,as well as thealmostequally strongdesiretodown-gradethe
work,totakeit off itspedestal, even to declare it a fake.This
latter seems so oftentobean easiermovetomakethana more positive
one. HereIwanteorefereofouraspectsof
connoisseurshipwhich,itseemstome, serve to restore to it some of
the disciplinary esteemitdeserves.Thefirsttwohave
receivedsomeattentionalready;thethird hasbeenmuch discussed,but
neverrigor-ously, and never inthe new context I present
here;andthefourth,thoughobvious,has received practically no
discussion -at least noovertandsystematicdiscussion- at all.The
firstrelatestothe epistemological statusof
connoisseurship(thoughitalso revealsits disciplinary relations with
other fields); the second relates to the interdiscip-linarynature
of connoisseurship (though it alsohasto do with its
epistemologicalsta-tus, inobvious ways); the third, relating to
intuition, places connoisseurship in its
neuro-scientificcontext;thefourth,relatingto trust,examinesthe
dimensionof connois-seurshipthatisboth socialandcognitive, andthus
falls into an equally new field,that of
social-cognitivetheory.Ishalldiscuss each of these areas in the
briefest terms, not pretendingtothoroughness(anzi!),bur
simplyaspointerstotherichpossibilities
forreconceivingconnoisseurshipasacore discipline in the humanities.
It is easy - and has become very fashion-able - to criticize the
verypractice of con-noisseurship. It has had few strong and
elo-quentdefendersinrecentyears;but there hasbeen one exceptional
one.He comes, at firstsight,fromanunexpectedquarter.
CarloGinzburg'svigorousandoriginal defenses of connoisseurship have
pointed to bothitshistoricalanditsepistemological
significance.Astherealfounderofthe school of what came tobe called
microhis-wry(andfromwhichhelaterdistanced himself), Ginzburg
showedhowtobuild a large and fascinating narrative, a picture let
uscallit, onthe basisof a carefulstudy of particular and - this is
significant - highly individual andpeculiarly distinctive
docu-ments.Andforhim,asanhistorian,the importance of establishing
the veracity and auchenriciry of