

A form of art collecting existed in the earliest civilizations—Egypt, Babylonia, China, and India—as arrays of precious objects and artworks stored in temples, tombs, and sanctuaries, as well as in the palaces and treasuries of kings. Such collections frequently displayed booty taken from conquered peoples and served to exalt the power and glory of a king or a priestly caste, rather than to display art objects for their innate significance. A taste for art collecting per se first developed in the West among the Greeks in the Hellenistic Age (4th–1st century BC) as they came to value art of previous stylistic periods for its own sake, rather than for its religious or civic significance. It was only with the rise of Rome, however, that art collecting came into its own. From the late 3rd century BC onward, as the Romans expanded eastward and southward, they plundered Greek cities of their artworks and sent these trophies back to Rome, thus stimulating a growing awareness and appreciation of Greek art. Wealthy Romans formed collections of Greek sculptures and paintings and commissioned copies to be made if the originals were beyond their reach. A voluminous trade in copies and fakes arose in order to satisfy the insatiable demand for Greek art. Gaius Verres, Lucullus, Pompey, and Julius Caesar were among the most important Roman collectors, as were the emperors Nero and Hadrian.

European interest in art lapsed during the Middle Ages, and the monasteries became the main repositories of cultural objects. But the Italian humanists’ rediscovery of the classical Greco-Roman cultural heritage during the Renaissance renewed interest in antique art and the collecting of it. The Medici family of Florence, the Gonzagas of Mantua, the Montefeltros of Urbino, and the Estes in Ferrara assembled collections of antique sculpture in addition to works of contemporary art by the great painters of the age. These princely Italian collectors were followed in the 17th century by those of Jean-Baptiste Colbert (finance minister under King Louis XIV) and Cardinals Richelieu , Colbert, and Mazarin of France; Archduke Leopold William and Kings Philip III and IV of Spain; the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Arundel, and Charles I of England; and Queen Christina of Sweden. One of the most important art sales in history took place in 1627, when Charles I of England purchased (for £80,000) the art holdings accumulated by the dukes of Mantua (though this collection was subsequently dispersed during the English Civil Wars). Cardinal Colbert spent vast sums of money building the royal art collection of the Louvre (opened 1681).

During the 18th century nonaristocratic collectors, such as Pierre Crozat, Horace Walpole, and the Fugger banking family were able to form important collections. Meanwhile, the great private collections of Europe’s royalty began to be opened to public viewing, and eventually monarchs and aristocrats began donating their holdings to the public. The first notable example of this was Maria Ludovica, the grand duchess of Tuscany and last of the Medicis, who in 1737 bequeathed her family’s vast art holdings to the state of Tuscany; they now form the core of the Uffizi Gallery, the Pitti Palace, and the Laurentian Library in Florence. Maria Ludovica was followed by many other monarchs and aristocratic collectors, and the great art museums that opened all over Europe in the late 18th and 19th centuries were based on collections their owners had ceded to the state. The movement of artworks from private collections into museums has been a dominant feature of art collecting ever since.

Wealthy industrialists came to supplant aristocrats as the preeminent collectors in the 19th century, with Americans assuming a particularly prominent role in this regard. J.P. Morgan, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon were among those Americans who combined great wealth with artistic discernment. The 19th and early 20th centuries saw an unprecedented flow of art masterpieces from Europe to the United States, where they ended up in that nation’s great art museums. Other important collectors in the 19th and 20th centuries depended on shrewd and prescient artistic judgment rather than on immense financial resources. Among such visionaries were Victor Chocquet (a minor French government official who was an important patron of the Impressionists) in the late 19th century and the dealer-collectors Paul Durand-Ruel, Ambroise Vollard, and Daniel-Kenry Kahnweiler in the early 20th century. The volume and scope of art collecting have continued to expand in subsequent decades, resulting in ever-higher prices for works of art.

Art collecting in non-Western countries was primarily the province of royalty, nobles, and religious institutions. Some of the Chinese emperors accumulated vast numbers of artworks, for instance, and though these collections tended to be dispersed or even destroyed upon the overthrow of successive dynasties, the collection built up by Ch’ien-lung (reigned 1735–96) and subsequent Ch’ing emperors came to form the nucleus of two great art museums, the National Palace Museum in Taiwan and the Palace Museum in Peking. In Japan, Buddhist monasteries were important repositories for artworks during the feudal period and afterward, and their collections eventually enriched the Tokyo National Museum and other modern Japanese institutions. The royal private collection of King Mongkut of Siam (reigned 1851–68) forms the core of the Bangkok National Museum of Thailand. Middle Eastern rulers also collected art, but less is known about their collections, which tended to be dispersed after the ruler’s death or the overthrow of his dynasty.