The Pictor Doctus, Between Knowledge and Workshop

Recent research on the collections treasured by artists during their lifetime, or those collections they had access to, has contributed significantly to the understanding of their own compositions. Traditional historiography has favoured the study of the royal and aristocratic collections that could have inspired artists rather than of the artists' own collections. Only those of the 'great' artists, such as Rubens, Bernini, Velazquez or Mengs, have been comprehensively examined. In the eighteenth century, the notion of collecting itself was transformed. An aesthetic taste was fostered and developed through the gathering of objects, and the personal collection of an artist could therefore provide the key to a more thorough understanding of their production. The nineteenth century witnessed artists bequeathing their collections to different institutions, sometimes even creating their own institutional collection. Architects, painters, sculptors and goldsmiths assembled some of the most important artistic collections of their time in their workshops.