CEB Working Paper The Master of …”: Creating Names for Art History and the Art Market Kim Oosterlinck and Anne-Sophie Radermecker The value of a painting is influenced above all by the artist who created it and his reputation. Painters nowadays are easy to identify and are used to signing their artworks. But what about those whose names have not survived the test of time? This paper focuses on a particular subset of anonymous artists labelled with so- called provisional names (“Master of …”). After considering the origins and reception of the practice of creating names for unrecorded artists, we empirically investigate the market behavior of this niche segment. Based on comparative price indexes and hedonic regressions, we show that masters with provisional names have not only become autonomous brand names that are highly valued by the art market; they also outperformed named artists between 1955 and 2015. In the second phase, we analyze the provisional-name linked elements valued by the market. We find that art market participants pay attention to the creator of the provisional name, its long-term recognition and market visibility, and the typology of the names. Keywords: Meta-accuracy; hireability; metaperception; job interview; résumé JEL Classifications: Z11 CEB Working Paper N° 18/007 January 2018 Université Libre de Bruxelles - Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management Centre Emile Bernheim ULB CP114/03 50, avenue F.D. Roosevelt 1050 Brussels BELGIUM e-mail: [email protected] Tel.: +32 (0)2/650.48.64 Fax: +32 (0)2/650.41.88 “The Master of …”: * Creating Names for Art History and the Art Market Kim Oosterlinck Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management Centre Emile Bernheim, Université libre de Bruxelles Anne-Sophie Radermecker Research Fellow, Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) Department of History, Arts and Archeology, Université libre de Bruxelles Abstract The value of a painting is influenced above all by the artist who created it and his reputation. Painters nowadays are easy to identify and are used to signing their artworks. But what about those whose names have not survived the test of time? This paper focuses on a particular subset of anonymous artists labelled with so- called provisional names (“Master of …”). After considering the origins and reception of the practice of creating names for unrecorded artists, we empirically investigate the market behavior of this niche segment. Based on comparative price indexes and hedonic regressions, we show that masters with provisional names have not only become autonomous brand names that are highly valued by the art market; they also outperformed named artists between 1955 and 2015. In the second phase, we analyze the provisional-name linked elements valued by the market. We find that art market participants pay attention to the creator of the provisional name, its long-term recognition and market visibility, and the typology of the names. Keywords: Market for Old Master Paintings – Masters with Provisional Names – Market Value – Brand Names – Price Indexes – Hedonic Pricing Model * Corresponding authors: Kim Oosterlinck, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 50 av. Roosevelt, CP 114/03, 1050 Brussels, Belgium. Email: [email protected]; Anne-Sophie Radermecker, Université libre de Bruxelles, 50 av. Roosevelt, CP 103, 1050 Brussels. Email: [email protected] “The Master of …”: * Creating Names for Art History and the Art Market Introduction As recently as 2014, a painting entitled The Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic, Augustine, Margaret and Barbara, attributed to a painter with the witty sobriquet of “The Master of the Plump-Cheeked Madonnas”, sold for USD 941,000 at Christie’s.1 Previously ascribed to Gérard David by Galerie Georges Petit in 1889, the painting had not reappeared on the art market for more than a century before it was auctioned under this new attribution. Despite the unusual provenance, this sale is one example among many others of “Master of” paintings trading for six figures. Markets dealing with informational and experiential goods are characterized by strong asymmetry of information and a high level of uncertainty surrounding their quality (Akerlof 1970; Smallwood and Conlisk 1979; Karpik 2010; Becker and Rössel 2013). This statement applies perfectly to the market for fine arts since artistic goods are unique and singular, and they need reliable information to guarantee authenticity and reduce uncertainty (Coffman 1991; Goetzmann 1995; Frey and Eichenberger 1995; Ashenfelter and Graddy 2003). On the Old Master segment in particular, information about authorship provided by scholars and experts is of paramount importance. This market segment –approximately covering the period 1350-1830 – is characterized by a high proportion of unsigned paintings and workshop output. According to Nash (2008 p. 123), it was not until 1420 that Flemish artists progressively started signing their works. This practice was adopted only very gradually and was not systematic before the 19th century (Chastel 1974). Even though advances in art history have facilitated artists’ identification, the attribution process remains challenging for earlier works. As a result, * Corresponding authors: Kim Oosterlinck, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 50 av. Roosevelt, CP 114/03, 1050 Brussels, Belgium. Email: [email protected]; Anne-Sophie Radermecker, Université libre de Bruxelles, 50 av. Roosevelt, CP 103, 1050 Brussels. Email: [email protected] 1 See The Master of the Plump-Cheeked Madonna (active in Bruges, first quarter of the 16th century), The Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic, Augustine, Margaret and Barbara, Christie’s Rockefeller Plaza (New York), Renaissance (sale 2819), 29 January 2014, lot 105. Presale estimate: USD 400,000 – USD 600,000. 2 potential buyers are exposed to a higher risk regarding the exact identity of the artist who conceived and executed the work. Issues in properly identifying the artist who created a given artwork should have a marked impact on its price. Indeed, many studies have shown that the name of the artist is one of the most critical determinants of prices on the art market (e.g. Ginsburgh and Schwed 1992; Onofri 2009; Renneboog and Spaenjers 2013; Oosterlinck 2017). The importance given to a name as a signal of reputation also results from the natural assumption that unbranded and unlabeled commodities do not satisfy a market that typically places a lower value on these goods (Dubin 1998). The art market is no exception, with artworks that need to be named or labelled to allow rapid and easy identification of the artist as a signal of quality (Grampp 1989, pp. 131-132). To overcome the problem of anonymity, market players can rely on the work of art historians and experts. Frequently faced with anonymous pictures in their research, they identify artists on basis of three distinct methods: i) Authentication of the painting as “by the artist” when archival records, material, formal and stylistic evidence support the thesis of autography ii) Use of attribution qualifiers (‘attributed to’, ‘studio of’, ‘circle of’, ‘school of’, ‘follower of’, ‘manner of’/’style of’/’genre of’, ‘group of’), which indirectly link an anonymous painting to a named artist, on the basis of proximity of style between the anonymous picture and the autograph work of the master iii) Creation of a provisional name (“Master of”) if art historians are able to single out a particular artistic personality in several paintings but cannot provide a name or biographical information because of a lack of surviving documentary records (contracts, inventories, biographies, correspondences, etc.). When none of the conditions required by these methods is met, a painting should be theoretically considered anonymous2; otherwise consumers may feel manipulated by an unconvincing brand that lacks credibility (Thompson 2006). In this case, art historians and the market employ generic formulas referring to the national or regional school (Flemish, Antwerp, etc.) which the unknown artist is thought to belong to. In other terms, when autography cannot be irrevocably corroborated, two authentication procedures are used. The first consists in 2 According to Grove (1996, p. 611), anonymous masters should not be confused with named artist with the prefixed title ‘Master’ and no surname, as in Master Bertram. 3 positioning a work in relation to a preexisting name in order to create indirect connections with a recorded personality. The second procedure implies a cognitive process that aims at creating a new nominal identity that is expected to become a substitute of the artist’s name. This typology of designations matters on the art market, since it sends signals about the nature of the good and affects buyers’ willingness to pay (Biglaiser 1993, p. 221). The “Master’s concept” is likely to be a system of independent and credible signaling that facilitates reputation-building for these artists in the market segment for Old Masters (Larceneux 2001, p. 62). Masters with provisional names (hereafter MPN) have, to the best of our knowledge, never been considered specifically in art market studies. It is actually unclear whether the literature systematically takes these artists into account. Usually, research exploring the art trade considers large and heterogeneous panels of artists, all periods and artistic movements included, and, for Old Masters, does not specify whether they include the MPN category, or at least does not distinguish it from named artists. By