VALUING THE PAST: THE CONSTITUTION OF THE ANTIQUES MARKET IN RUSSIA Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität zu Köln 2011 vorgelegt von Elena Bogdanova aus Ulyanovsk (Russland) © 2011 Elena Bogdanova Referent: Prof. Dr. Jens Beckert Korreferent: Prof. Dr. Sigrid Quack Tag der Promotion: 8 Juli 2011 ii List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................... vii 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Research Question and Theoretical Framework ................................................... 3 1.2. Case Selection and Methodology ........................................................................................... 5 1.3. Organizational and Methodological Constraints of the Research ............................. 7 1.4. The Structure of the Thesis ..................................................................................................... 8 2. The Value of the Past: The Emergence and Development of Interest in Antiques in Western Europe .............................................................................................. 14 2.1. Bringing the Past into the Present: The Evolution of the European Concept of Antiques and Their Value ............................................................................................................. 15 2.1.1. Early Forms of Sacral, Social, and Material Values of Antiques .................................... 15 2.1.2. Renaissance Mentality and the Birth of a Systematic Understanding of Antiques as Old and Rare ............................................................................................................................................ 20 2.1.3. The Spread of Interest in Antiques Across Europe in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries ................................................................................................................................. 23 2.1.4. The Beginnings of a Systematic Study of the Past: Classifications and Styles in Archaeology and Art .................................................................................................................................. 24 2.1.5. Trade and Sentiment: The Antiques Market in Nineteenth Century Europe ......... 26 2.1.6. Antiques as a Part of Civilization Processes ......................................................................... 29 3. Social and Political Transformations in Russia and the Value of Antiques .. 33 3.1. Specificity of Russian Art and Antiques: Borrowing and Adapting ....................... 33 3.2. The Antiques Market in Russia in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries .... 35 3.3. The Russian Revolution and the Establishment of State Control of the Antiques Market .................................................................................................................................................. 39 3.3.1. Accounting for Culture: Nationalization and the Sale of Art and Antiques in the 1920s ................................................................................................................................................................ 42 3.3.2. Industrialization at the Expense of Culture: Turning Rembrandts into Convoys of Tractors ........................................................................................................................................................... 45 3.3.3. Future‐oriented Ideology and Memory Crisis ..................................................................... 46 3.4. Antiques and Their Value During WWII .......................................................................... 49 3.5. Khruschev’s Housing Policy, the “Thaw” Ideology, and The Fight With Meschanstvo: The Socialist Lifestyle vs. Antiques ................................................................ 50 3.6. The Emergence of the Illegal Antiques Market in the Soviet Union ...................... 52 3.7. Rehabilitation of the Past and the Return of the Market in the 1990s ................. 54 4. The International Market for Art and Antiques: Structure and Main Characteristics ........................................................................................................................ 57 4.1. Assessing the Financial Attractiveness of Art and Antiques .................................... 59 4.2. Prices and Economic Cycles: Art and Antiques as Alternative Investments ....... 60 4.2.1. Returns on Investments in Art and Antiques: Methodological Challenges for Measuring the Worth of Art Objects .................................................................................................... 61 4.2.2. Creating “Market Baskets” as a Method of Value Accounting ....................................... 63 4.2.3. Value Regressions for Single Objects ....................................................................................... 64 4.3. The Attractiveness of Investments in Art and Antiques from a Comparative Perspective ......................................................................................................................................... 66 4.4. The Contemporary Market for Antiques and Its Main Characteristics ................ 69 4.4.1. Market Actors ................................................................................................................................... 70 iii 4.5. The Role of Incomplete Information in Market Coordination ................................. 76 5. Beautiful and Dangerous: An Empirical Study of Antiques Market Coordination in Russia ......................................................................................................... 79 5.1. The Antiques Trade as an Illegal Market in the Soviet Union: Main Features, and Consequences for the Contemporary Market ........................................................................ 80 5.1.1. Structural Preconditions of the Antiques Market in the 1990s ................................... 81 5.2. The Structure of the Contemporary Antiques Market in Russia ............................. 83 5.3. Market Actors ............................................................................................................................ 89 5.3.1. Buyers .................................................................................................................................................. 91 5.3.2. Dealers ................................................................................................................................................. 95 5.3.3. Experts and Institutions of Expertise ..................................................................................... 96 5.4. A Fight over the Market for Expertise: Museum Brands vs. New Institutions ... 99 6. Changing the Value of the Past: An Empirical Study of the Valuation of Antiques .................................................................................................................................. 102 6.1. Formal Criteria for Defining Antiques ........................................................................... 102 6.1.1. “The Past that is Over”: Temporal Definitions of Antique ........................................... 103 6.1.2. Levels of Artistic Mastery and Rarity as Criteria for Antiqueness ........................... 104 6.2. What Else Matters? The Typology of Value ................................................................... 107 6.3. Authenticating Antique Objects: the Field of Technical Expertise ....................... 111 6.3.1. Acquaintance with Tools and a Knowledge of Woods: Technical Authentication .......................................................................................................................................................................... 112 6.3.2. Artist Names as the Markers of Authenticity .................................................................... 114 6.3.3. “Biography of a Chair”: Research in Provenance as a Part of the Authentication Procedure .................................................................................................................................................... 115 6.4. What is the Value of Authenticity: Stylistic Reproductions and Copies on the Market ................................................................................................................................................ 117 6.4.1. Replicating the Masterpieces: Creating Valuable Copies ............................................. 117 6.4.2. Modern Copies and Replicas: Technology vs. Mastery ................................................. 118 6.4.3. Ties to the Past: Originals, Copies and Stylistic Reproductions as Competing Products in the Market for Antiques ................................................................................................ 119 6.5. Types of Fakes and Forgery in the Market .................................................................... 121 6.6. “Reincarnated Signs”: Personalizing Antiques ........................................................... 128 6.7. “Civilizing” People: The Positional Value of Antiques .............................................. 129 6.7.1. Champagne Fountains and Gold vs.