Price and value of paintings in the Florence art market in the 18th century

This paper aims at investigating the price formation of paintings on the eighteenth century Florence art market, on the basis of various and diversified archival materials, such as account books, inventories and other miscellaneous sources. The study analyzes and compares the painting’s evaluations of the inventories with the prices of paintings purchased for its collection by the leading noble Florentine household of Riccardi and then checking the results with the data from the inventories of the collections of the others important aristocratic Florentine families, such as Gerini and Salviati. The paper is organized in three sections: the first section outlines the develompment and the general features of the Riccardi art collection from the seventeenth to the eighenteenth century. The second section attempts to analyze the price formation of paintings in the Florence art market in the eighteenth century, while the third section suggests some concluding notes.