Abstract
This project explores the complex fabric of artistic and economic competition in the field of history painting in Amsterdam, at a time when the art market for new paintings expanded quickly, becoming the most thriving and competitive of Europe, until contracting sharply after 1670. In this art market, artists, dealers, connoisseurs and the wider art-buying public continually interacted with, and were affected by, one another. What choices were made by artists in creating and marketing their works, and by dealers, patrons and buyers in acquiring them? How did these choices determine the changes in technique and process of production (process innovation) as well as the changes in form, content and function (product innovation) of the works that were made, bought and viewed?