New Books Network Maddalena Alvi, "The European Art Market and the First World War: Art, Capital, and the Decline of the Collecting Class, 1910–1925" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Dec 17, 2025
Maddalena Alvi, a historian specializing in modern European art markets, dives deep into how the First World War transformed the European art landscape. She reveals that the war shattered the integrated market dominated by elite collectors, paving the way for a nationalized, finance-driven art economy. Alvi also explores how British, French, and German markets reacted differently, with art emerging as a tangible investment during inflation in Germany while British auctions continued unabated. Her insights reveal the profound socio-economic shifts that forever altered art collection.
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Archive Discovery Sparked The Project
- Maddalena Alvi discovered a German art-market journal Der Kunstmarkt while prepping for her master's and photographed its issues as insurance.
- Reading those wartime reports sparked her interest in how war transformed art into property and capital.
Mix Quantitative Data With Cultural Sources
- Combine qualitative reading with quantitative price data to test observers' claims about market change.
- Use recurring debates, newspapers, memoirs, and legal records to situate auction data culturally and legally.
Auctions Revealed Market Integration
- Prewar European art trade functioned as an integrated market held together by a transnational 'collecting class' and shared taste.
- Auctions acted as distribution centers that reveal price and cultural integration across countries.