September 20, 2011 5:43 AM An interdisciplinary collaboration
between two scholars at Tulane has led to pioneering insights
into the world of art. The Development of the Art Market in
England, co-authored by Thomas Bayer, an adjunct lecturer of art
history, and John Page, an associate professor of accounting,
reveals how market pressures shaped the visual culture of the
time. “We approached it from several sides — from the
traditional art-historical approach, as well as using
sophisticated tools for data analysis,” Bayer says. Their
published research also is hybrid, with the printed book
complemented by images on a website. The study was prompted by
Bayer’s discovery of records of 42,000 art sales at British
auction houses from 1730-1900. “This was particularly rich
data,” says Bayer, “It includes variables that modern auction
houses don’t list, such as the names of buyers and sellers in
addition to titles and prices.” Page, who teaches a course in
data analysis, provided the analytical expertise to track tr