In recent decades there has been increased academic interest in the history of the antiques trade over the past two centuries. An ongoing programme, begun in 2013 and led by Mark Westgarth, was initially funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) grant. The project, which is now building a significant collection of dealers’ archives, housed at the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds.
The history of this project is recorded here; Blairman’s has been a formal partner from the outset. And an outline of the research undertaken is here.
Most recently, as part of its celebration The Year of the Dealer, the project has uploaded a series of short films about objects acquired from or through the British antiques trade by museums across the United Kingdom. These films, “which reveal new and previously marginalised stories of world-renowned and familiar museum objects through the co-production of a series of 5 museum ‘hidden history’ digital trails; each trail has a curated selection of 10 museum objects foregrounding the history of antique dealers in the biography of the museum object.”
The three films below are about objects acquired through or from our firm:
