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Digital Museum
  • What is Collecting?
  • The History of Collecting
  • Collector’s Psychology
Looking at Collectorship
Looking at Collectorship
Art collecting is an incurable disease

Simon De Pury

Famous collector and founder of Philips de Pury & Company Auction House

What is
Collecting?

In its generic meaning, the word ‘collection’ refers to “the group of objects brought together and classified in accordance with their characteristics for didactic, pragmatic or hedonistic purposes”. It is essentially composed of the various examples of the same type of object. Objects very different from each other, such as stamp, coin, butterfly, plant, book,antiquariat or artwork can also be collected in subcategories within their own domains. For instance, a painting collector might be collecting the “Oil paintings by Republican Era painters depicting the Bosphorus”.

Originating from an amateur curiosity, the collector classifies his or her items in accordance with a variety of criteria including chronology, relevance, medium, material-intellectual value, uniqueness, etc. “Individual” collections growing out of a natural effort and expressing personal areas of interest exist in addition to “institutional” collections that must be managed as professional “jobs”, both conserved and exhibited in museums and other similar structures.

Within the framework of today’s information society, what are the indicators of a good collection?

  • The collection is not only an economically significant group of items, but also an entity based on the collector’s knowledge, gusto and passion accumulated over many years, reflecting his or her vision.
  • The collector shall first decide what to collect, in line with his or her area of interest.
  • He or she shall be open to a never ending learning process in the selected field.
  • The collection shall have a ‘rigid’ definition of scope based on knowledge, but it shall also have flexible boundaries.
  • A collection targeting and representing a specific time frame gives it coherence.
  • A collection may focus on certain themes wthin its scope of definition. These themes may also be organized in further subcategories.
  • Having links between the parts composing a collection’s entirety is helpful in curating selections out of it and thus giving the collection its identity.
  • The authenticity and uniqueness of a collection’s items augment its material-intellectual value.

The collector telling his or her story via the objects he or she finds interesting and collects is a figure we encounter in all historical periods.

Important Points to Consider When Building a Collection

Independent of the type or the scope of your collection, a long-term collecting endeavor involves a certain kind of economic shopping procedure as well. Therefore, there are some points to be careful about.

The key determining factor for your passion is the budget you can allocate or generate. This budget dedicated to the acquisition or an artwork or object will help you in further narrowing the scope you had already narrowed with knowledge. Nowadays, it is possible to build a collection with any level of budget in addition to large amounts. Therefore, you are able to reach the works of contemporary artists particularly from younger generations that appeal to collectors with mid-level income in all price ranges.

By narrowing your scope and discovering what you find aesthetically pleasing, you may build a collection with a more focused and coherent narrative. Let us assume in an example that we focus on the subcategory of young artists’ “figurative” works within the category of “Contemporary Turkish Painters.

When investing specifically in works of art, you must:

  • Look at the artist’s individual career and collect information about his or her exhibition record as well as the institutions and collections that own his or her work. Moreover, create personal agendas and follow the exhibitions, events and art fairs featuring the artist or gallery in question. You may also share this information with other collectors around you with similar interests and sources of passion.
  • Learn the art-historical importance of an artwork if it belongs to a certain period, a well-known artist or style. If a very expensive artwork by a famous artist is in question, natural sciences like physics, chemistry and biology in addition to visual examination and knowledge of history will also offer you a laboratory where the art experts can assess the artwork’s physical condition.
  • Be careful about whether the artwork was created with the artist’s authentic style, and avoid imitations and works that are too similar.
  • Examine the artwork’s unique technical and material characteristics, checking the status of its “condition”.
  • Follow the developments in the global markets as much as those in the domestic one and compare the local prices with the prices of other names with similar artworks.
  • Check the galleries’ pasts and reference lists, making sure to acquire works through absolutely trustworthy art spaces or art consultants. The determining factor for trust at this point is the institutions’ knowledge level in terms of services. - Acquire the “certificate of authenticity” with a wet signature provided by the gallery or the auction house, featuring the basic information and illustrating the originality of the artwork.
  • If you decide to sell the artwork after a while, act only after having taken the gallery’s or consultants’ opinion. Give the artwork to an individual or institution that will take care of it at least as much as you have, either in exchange of its current financial value or as donation.
  • Determine the artwork’s presentation method in advance, like hanging it framed or unframed at home or at your office.
  • Show the maximum effort in making sure that the artwork’s condition is preserved throughout time and under any circumstances, also considering the conditions of the storage space you are using.
  • At this point, let us also remember that an artwork is also considered an investment tool in terms of its commercial value acquired in time. Rather than an expensive hobby, your collection is a serious investment whose financial and intangible value will increase within a 5-10 year period!
  • Finally, do not regard collecting as an investment tool only, but consider it as a new way of understanding and exploring life, and do not forget that you are entering a new environment with it.

Now let’s look at a collection based on objects where we collect “pocket watches”.

For any kind of object, you may visit antique shops where active commerce takes place, participate at online or actual auctions, or attend previews taking place before them. You may find the catalogs of the previous auction sessions and their sales results on the auction houses’ websites.

Based on our example, you may examine the history of the watch – or the object in question – as an instrument illustrating time, as well as the materials and techniques involved in its production and their evolution through time.

As an alternative, besides following those rare “pocket watches” – or objects - necessarily endowed with antique’s value and thus relatively expensive, you may also follow those brands that continue to produce the new models of such nostalgic objects.

When building a collection of objects, it is important to:

  • Make sure the object is as rare an example of its sort as possible.
  • Check that all its parts are there and intact, especially if it is a mechanical object like the “pocket watch” in our example.
  • Check its history of repair or maintenance if available and make sure the broken parts were replaced with originals.
  • Take the approval of an expert for a fully functioning example with a good condition.
  • Check whether the object carries the signs and marks proving its authenticity such as a brand logo or a stamp and ask for a sales history document if available.
  • Learn about the price range of similar products.
  • Take the experts’ confirmation on the anecdotes associated with those objects used by certain individuals or institutions, such as “a pocket watch custom-made for an Ottoman Pasha in the 19th century”, for such personal stories not only have intangible value but they also generate additional financial value and affect the sales price.
  • Obey the legal conditions and procedures associated with collecting very rare artefacts with high archaeological, historical or cultural value for the country and the society.
  • Obtain the collectorship document necessary to be able to collect such artefacts according to our national law.
  • Register the collection with the museum assigned to you by the ministry, notify them when necessary and go through periodic inspections.
  • Avoid involvement with the trading of historical artefacts with no clear provenance, security or documentation.
  • Avoid products that are potential forgeries.
  • Avoid transactions with dubious individuals and institutions who do not possess the necessary authorization documents and licenses.
The company of captain roelof bicker
Looking at Collectorship
An all-encompassing theatre animating everything that exists in the universe, original or copy

Samuel Quiccheberg

“Ideal Museum”

The History of
Collecting

It is well known that the tendency to collect valuable objects or artworks has a long history. In this sense, the emergence of collectorship and the development of art history and museums are strongly intertwined. Long before the birth of the museum as we know it, objects and artworks with attributed value were accumulated in spaces including shrines, temples, churches and palaces, both for sacred and profane purposes.

We are aware that in 12th century B.C., rulers in Elam brought to their palaces some war trophies they collected in Mesopotamian expeditions, and in 9th century B.C., Assyrians exhibited them to ornament their cities.

As we arrive to the 3rd century B.C., Emperor Ptolemaios I had a separate section called “mouseion” built in his palace in Alexandria, an important city of the Hellenistic period. This “first museum” was part of an education complex containing a library, an amphitheater, an observatory, study rooms, botanic gardens and a zoo. The structure dedicated to the Mousa (muses), the nine daughters of Zeus known as the eternal patrons of arts in Greek mythology, is also at the origin of the word “museum”. Ancient cities such as Antiochus and Pergamon hosted similar structures as well. Moreover, rulers in Athens in 2nd century B.C. publicly exhibited artworks including painting and sculpture in their city.

During the Roman period, on the other hand, the Emperor Marcus Claudius Marcellus (268-208 B.C.) exhibiting his valuable war trophies became a turning point in the history of collecting. Quickly embraced by the wealthy as a status symbol, collectorship resulting in exhibitions of artworks and rare objects became widespread in villas’ courtyards and libraries, followed by smaller architectural sections like portrait galleries. The villa of papyri in Herculaneum is among the most distinguished examples reflecting the understanding of collection in the ancient-pagan world.

Looking at Collectorship Looking at Collectorship Looking at Collectorship

As in 6th century Pope Gregorius I allowed pictorial depictions in religious buildings for the purpose of educating “ignorant” populations about Christianity, i.e. his support for painting turned the church into a center for art. During the Middle Ages, most collections were based on various objects left in shrines as gifts/dedications during religious ceremonies or sacred heritage. In cities with the church at their center, the bourgeoisie and feudal lords enriched by commerce also began to collect small-scale religious objects like icons.

Starting from the 15th century, the Renaissance marked a new era in which newly rich classes, aristocracy and city rulers emerged as “art patrons”, a phenomenon accelerated by the atmosphere of political and economic freedom in Italian city states. Artworks that acquired a more independent nature both in terms of form and content began to be collected by various sections of the population for religious, philosophical and aesthetic purposes.

The developing patronage-as-collectorship also influenced architecture as it reached a larger scale. Newly rich merchant classes added sections like “galleria” or “studiolo” to their buildingsfor the purpose of exhibiting their collections. The famous architect and the “first art historian” Giorgio Vasari arranged the second floor of the Palazzo Uffizi as a “galleria” for the Medici, the distinguished Florentine family, as he began its construction in 1560. In the same period we also witness the development of a variety of collecting tendencies. In Venice, a city that developed thanks to sea trade, we know the existence of collections with a very large scope ranging from jewelry and precious stones to weaponry, tapestry and miniatures.

During 16th century, the Renaissance individuals growing wealthier embarked on collecting “cabinets of curiosity” where they reflected their personal areas of interest, a phenomenon also due to the more liberal environment they lived in. These chambers relatively smaller than those large dynasty collections that formed the basis of the museums, also represent the emergence of the first collector-as-individual profile.

The cabinets of curiosity aiming at fitting the entire world-universe to one room have no boundaries. They may include any object found personally valuable or “strange and bizarre”, such as stuffed animals, dried plants, sea shells, paintings and statues, books, spheres, maps, antiques, textile fabrics, clocks, coins, telescopes and weapons. Their name is originated in the fact that they contain what is “rare”.

The individually established cabinets of curiosity are individual universes and they represent the world as imagined by the collector. These cabinets where the individual accumulates everything his or her mind pursues in the face of life’s mysteries, also reflects the adventure of the human-object relationship. The collector searches for the meaning of life through the “special knowledge, secrets and symbols” in these rare objects.

The period in which the Netherlands accumulated wealth in the 17th century, with an impact on art and the understanding of collectorship, is also the era during which a new urban and strong collector type emerged. The development of trade routes extending to the East and the Americas brought about an economic power sustaining a continental art market. Rembrandt, one of the crucial names of the era and also a collector, not only collected paintings by his contemporaries but also rare antiques and weaponry including Japanese helmets, Indonesian spears and Roman busts for his own taste, and he made great profits via trading them.

In 18th century, European dynasties began working on those collections that would become the backbone of today’s museums. Within the framework of the academic approaches born out of Enlightenment, these large collections were transformed into the first museums, public institutions open to everyone.

In 1746, a generic collection was built out of historical artworks accumulated in the French Royal Palace, and consequently the idea of exhibiting them to the general public emerged. In 1750, this idea became reality with the foundation of Luxemburg Museum as the first known “official” museum in history. The British Museum in Britain emerged in 1759, followed by the Louvre in France in 1793 and the Hermitage, the latter founded with acquisitions extending back to 1725, institutions that stand out with their collections covering a very large territory of universal human heritage. Museum collections were also helpful in the construction of histories and nation-state identities.

The 19th century political developments saw the emergence of nationalism, the end of imperial era, and all large dynasty collections were nationalized alongside the places that hosted them, becoming museums serving the general public with universal scientific values.

Looking at Collectorship
Looking at Collectorship
Buying an artwork and falling in love are exact same things.

Nohra Haime

Member of the Art Dealers Association of America

Collector’s
Psychology

In modern times, individuals and institutions tended towards scientific collectorship based on specialization. Consequently, in addition to their aesthetic and symbolic meanings, the collected objects’ cultural and psychological aspects also became important. The collectors’ identities and personalities began to equally generate curiosity as the objects they collected without “investment” purposes.

Basic Dynamics of Collecting

The collector’s choice of an object or field is not only based on coincidence. There exists a direct link between the collected items and the collecting behavior. Nevertheless it is still interesting to examine how the collector pursues a certain path of behavior and how the process takes place.

Focusing on the basic emotions and tendencies of the collectors, who are the key figures for us in understanding the various aspects of the special object-human relationships in history, helps us understand the specific dynamics of the process.

  • The collector initially approaches the collected items for aesthetic purposes
  • He or she takes “pleasure” out of the objects he or she attributes taste and value to.
  • Learning and other non-economic interests can be considered indirect, intellectual benefits. We may also refer to social benefits as a sign of respectability and status.
  • Collecting, perfectionism, a sharp eye for detail, intolerance for missing elements, complementing, control and ownership are some of the drives these individuals develop as early as their childhood.
  • The childhood curiosity for the outside and the interpretation of life as a”game” evolves in time and transforms into the reflexes of “collecting” and “accumulating” in adulthood.
  • These drives are further consolidated by motivations such as knowledge accumulation, energy and material possibilities.
  • With repetitive behavior, the collector satisfies his or her feeling of “completion” that exists in every individual.
  • He or she achieves “self-realization” through what he or she collects through time.
  • Collecting is also an accumulation of memories. It contributes both to social and individual memory.
  • Via the collection, the collector develops an alternative identity to face the conflicts and difficulties of everyday life.
  • Unlike ordinary individuals, he or she evaluates the collected objects from the viewpoint of more alternative and specific aspects. He or she does not allow the object to perish.
  • He or she objects to the ordinary use of the items seen as “meta”, aiming at recycling them or attributing them new meanings.
  • Collecting is a relaxing, disciplining activity giving meaning to time and contributing to the individual’s development in pursuing new spiritual goals.
  • The collector leaves a heritage to the future.

The Joy of Living

As long as collecting does not involve an automatic action, it becomes a clue in understanding what the modern human being wants to do to avoid alienation. The collector actively participates to life via the interest he or she expresses for the surrounding reality, experiencing it at first hand.

According to Jean Baudrillard “Whatever its purpose is, in every collection resides a desire to escape this world. For the collector builds an alternative discourse responding exclusively to himself as a result of his alienation within the social discourse, the rules of which he cannot completely grasp” (1).

On the other hand, the collected items can be interpreted as the signifiers representing the human being’s relationship to other human beings and the universe. Objects as symbols of identity may reflect their owners’ unique characteristics, abilities and distinguishing traits; or, to the contrary, they may underline similarities such as lifestyle and common heritage.

Consequently, the urge to build a world alternative to the existing one generates in the collector the desire to collect those items that are “pleasant” to him. In this microcosmos built with these collected objects, the collector imagines himself and observes himself.

(1) Ali Artun, “Nadire Kabineleri”, Müze ve Modernlik: Tarih Sahneleri–Sanat Müzeleri I, (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2012), s. 42.

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