Why ConnoisseurshipMatters David Freedberg In 1998, in an article intended to accompany hisgreat sr.tmmaon Flemish Art and Archi-tecturein the Pelican History of Art series, Hans Vlieghe commented on 'the significant increase in the number of new contributions onseventeenth-centuryFlemishartsince 1960' .1 What he did not note, of course, was that he himself wasresponsible for much of this increase.He hasranged more widely in the field and refi ned it more thoroughly than anyotherscholarint hearea.Thirty-one years earlier,in 1967, he wrote: 'Ons beeld van de onrwikkeling der Anrwerpse composirieschilderkunsr in de zevent iende eeuw is, behalve Vt war het oeuvre van Rubens, Van DyckenJordaensaangaat,weinigduidelijk. Voor eenbc:langrijk gedeelte is dit re wijten aan hetfeic dac veclvandeschilderijendiedoor Ancwerpseschilders van het tweede plan zowar in de schaduw van de grote kunstcnaarstri rs van de Scheldestad werden uitgevoerd nooic gepub-li ceerdzi jngeworden,jazichinheelwat gevallen onder foutieve benamingen of als anon-ieme smkken in minder bekende kerken, parti-culiere verzamelingen ofmoeilijk coegankelijke muscumdepors bevinden.'2 In face, Vlieghe had already begun remedy-ing this situation, andfromthe time of the epochmaking article in which he made this statement,he secout eoclarifythe oeuvres of thelesser-knownAntwerppaintersand bring them out of the shadows. He rectified themistakesandfilledthelacunaewith energy.Hescouredtheremotechurches, penetratedtheprivatecollections,and foundhiswayintotheobscuredepotsin order to reattribute the works and refine or consolidatetheoeuvresof thethenlesser known Flemishmasters.They were'lesser-known'then, but now weknow them with vastlygreaterrefinementthanwhen Vlieghe fi rst began publishing his articles, beginning with hisinvestigations of David Teniers II and Ill precisely in 1960.3 'Her omsrellend gebrek aanbehoorlijke infor-matie aangaande de Vlaamse schildersvan grote religieuzeenhistorischetaferelen,dieinde XVIIeeeuwzowar opherrweede plan hebben gewerkc,iseenmcrkwaard igfeit', he noted inthe second of t he artjcles he pro-ducedin the annttS mirabilisthat was1967.4 Thiswasthearticleinwhichhealmost single-handedly laid the basis for the creation of the oeuvre of an artist untilthen almost entirely known from prints and documents, CornelisSchut.Beforethen,asHorse WHYCONNOISSEURSHIPMATTERS29 GersonnotedinthePelicanHistoryof Art volumewhichVlieghe'ssttmmareplaced, Schutwasonlyknownforhisengravings, whilehispaimingswere'concealed amongst ahoseof uncerrain attributions' .5 ] use as he would later do in the case of many other vainters, Vlieghe sec ouc anumber of secure attributions, which then formedthe basis forthe now dearly-defined corpus. It was precisely in the area of history painting -once, of coursethe most important of the genres, but now most neglected of all- that Vlieghe made hismost significant contribu-tions.He did so thanks to his incomparable combinationof documentaryandvisual skills- justwhatBerenson,inhisclassic essayonthetaskoftheconnoisseur demanded6- aswell,of course,ashis keen senseof whothe important figuresoutside the greattrio ofRubens van Dyck andJor-dacnsactuallywere.Our understandingof the visual culture chat produced these three hasbeenimmeasurablyenhancedby Vlieghe's own work. In this senseconnois-seurshiphasactuallyenabledthestudyof whatistoooftenregardedasthemodern replacementoftraditionalarthistory, namelychat of 'visual culture', ad iscipline thatpretendstobenewbutinfactrests entirely on some of the most characteristic skills and interests of art history. Indeed,al readyinthefirstofthe benchmarkarticlesfromjustcited, Vlieghemadefi.wdamcntaladditions and refinementstOtheoeuvresof Janvan Boeckhorst,TheodorBoeyermans,Eras-musQuellinus,CornelisSchut,Pieter Thijs,TheodoorvanThulden,andthe neglectedhiscory paimings of Cornelis de Vos.7Manyof thesearenamestowhich Vliegheoftenreturned,frequentlywith trenchanteffect,asi nhisnotableresolu-tion of the problem of the Cardiff cartoons oncesoopti misticallyarcribmedeo Rubensbygivingthemdecisivelyto Jan van Boeckhorst,8 his fundamental and still suggestivearticle, ontheRomanyearsof CornelisSchut,9andtherichworkon Erasmus Quellinus, Rubens's 'primer offi-cial'.10 Il is ameasure of the fr ui t fulness of Vlieghe'swork that allof these contribu-tionsledtofully-fledgedmonographsby othersontheseartists- i ncludingthe important1990exhibitionson Jan van Boeckhorst, 1 'IKatlijne van der Stighelen's outstandingmonographonCornelisde Vos, 12 andthethoroughexaminationof thecareer andworkof CornelisSchutby GerrrudeWilmers, 13tomentiononlya few.Ontheotherhand,whenit cameto ErasmusQuellinus,Vl ieghepoi ntedly expandedandcorrectedthe picrure given by J ean-Pi erre de Bruyn in his monograph onthatpai nter.14 Typicalishiscomment ontheHomagetoMosesafterthePassage throttgh the Red Sea.Mter pointing out that De Bruyn only mentioned three of the four oil sketches inthe cycle, Vlieghe promptly locatesthefourthsketch,andthenadds laconicallyanddevastatingly'Deze schilderi jen zijn echcer typisch vroeg werk van ] an van den Hoecke' .15 How few of us could immediatelyidentify a ]an van den Hoecke,letalonebesureof histypical early works!Sotoo inmany other cases, ~ utoo numeroustOmention. Throughout the sixtiesandseventies,Vliegheclearedthe ground- andtheair- togiveussharp profiles of many artists,ranging from Gas-par deCrayer,on which he wrotehisfun-damentalmonograph, 16 rightthroughto lesser figures such as Arnout Vinckenborch andArcusWolfforc,whoseworkwould have been entirely loseeothe history of art had he notidentified and thereby resuscit-atedthem. 17 Whotherefore,looking at the work of HansVlieghecouldsaythatconnoisseur-ship doesnot matter? Or chat is somehow a peripheral task? It lies at the very core of the history of art. In 1719 Jon a than Richardson published hisTwoDist"ourses,inwhichhe set out the aimsandprinciplesofconnoisseurship.18 Thesewereitsfoundationalarguments, though of courseits practice alreadyhada longhisrory.ForRichardson, as,probably, formost practitioners, connoisseurship had three basic aims:firstly the making of judg-ments of quality ('the Goodness of a Picture' asRichardsonput it),secondlythe assign-ment of hands, andthirdly the distinguish-ingof originalsfromcopies(including,of course,theidentification of forgeries).19 In the second of the TwoDiscottrses Richardson set out why connoisseurshipwasa suitable task for genrlemen20- a designation which has come to cause much trouble for the sub-sequent reputation of connoisseurship. Now thepresentdiscussionwillnotchieflybe concerned with judgements of quality, if at all.It willbeconfinedtothoseaspecrsof connoisseurship in whichVlieghe excelled, namelythe establishment of the oeuvres of masters,and, paripasstt,thedistinctions between originals and copies, and the iden-tification of forgeries.These aspectsof con-noisseurshipdonot,inandof themselves, have much rodo with the determination of the artistic worth of a painting or sculpture (vaguethoughthispursuitmaybe),but offer the possibility of arriving at falsifiable andtherefore sc::curc::coudusiuus. Itiseasyenough,primafacie,togive examplesof whyconnoisseurshipmatters, of whereithasbeensatisfactorilyusedto establish a corpus of works and where it has usefully identified copies and fakes.21 These activitieshaveaki ndofself-evident, (thoughsometimesinflated)worth.l tis even easier eo say why connoisseurship does not matter, or whereitisflawedor corrupt . Manyof us,enjoyingapainting,would agree that it really doesnot matter from an aesthetic point of view whether the Dresden VemtswaspaintedbyGiorgione or byTit-ian, the Polish Rider by Rembrandt or Drost, rhe \floman in the Red Hat in Washington by Vermeerorbyanineteenthcenturyfaker. But if we feel - or chink wefeel - so secure about the aesthetic merits of a pai nting that it doesnot matter who actually painted it, thenitisimporranralsotoconsiderthe strong counter-arguments in Nelson Good-man's Languages ofArt. In this book- insuf-ficientlyreadbyart historians - Goodman argued powerfully that simple knowledge of thefactthataworkisanoriginal(and mtttatiJmzttandisnot afake,orbysomeone else) is as critical a factor as any other in our estheticjudgment aboutit. 22 This formed part of Goodman'scomplex andbrilliantly argued viewthat the cognitiveisanessen-tial part of the esthetic. One of theeasiestargumentseomake against connoisseurship, eosay whyit does notmatter,istopointtothesocialand financialpressuresonjudgment,particu-larlyjudgments of attribution. There isno shortageof examplesof thewayinwhich financialpressure and inducement influence the upward attribution of a work. There are coomanyof suchcases,andtheyareoften shaming.Markets - galleries,dealers,auc-tionhouses- exerciseunduepressures. TlieyiuJuce expensLOmakejudgments - both of quality andof attribution - that suit their own pocketsrather than the pur-poses of disinterested scholarship. Thisweaknessofconnoisseucship - though Idonorbelieve it isaninherent one- is closely related, if only because of its WHYCONNOISSEURSHIPMATTERS31 socialdimension,totheseveralwaysin whichconnoisseurshipmaybefetishizecl. Thetotemizationof thesuperioreyeisa familiar enough phenomenon, and so too is theenhancedsocialstandingsometimes achieved through it. Bernard Berenson pro-videstheclassicexample.Hesortedpic-tures out, spoke eloquently about them, was thoroughly corrupted by dealers, andoper-atedfromachicvillaintheTuscanhills, which both enhanced his own social stand-ingandthatof thosewhovisitedit.But few,if any,would now admit that connois-seurship shouldmatter because it makes one abettergentleman,asJonathanRichard-santhought. 23Certainlymostof uscan agreethat the skills of connoisseurship can makeoneabetterarthistorian,asHans Vlieghe has consistently shown throughout hiscareer(hewouldhavebeenaperfect gentleman anyway). But let us return to the second and third criteriaforconnoisseurship,namelythe abilitytomakejudgmentsaboutauthor-ship (that is, about attribution and the abil-ity torecognizehands),andto distinguish true fromfalse. Alot of ink- quite a lot of good ink in fact- hasbeen devoted to these. The Morel-lian method of making attributions on the basis of those features of a painting that are unconscious rather than conscious -finger-nails,roes,tearclucts,earlobesandsoon -has actually yielded many good results over the years. 24 At the sametime, the dangers andthepitfallsofattributionbythis methodareobvious,sinceearlobesand tearductsarearguablynotalwaysuncon-scious;and wishfulthinkingsooften does come inco the matter- the wishto assign a name,tomaketheworkbebyasuperior rather thanby aninferior master,as well as thealmostequally strongdesiretodown-gradethe work,totakeit off itspedestal, even to declare it a fake.This latter seems so oftentobean easiermovetomakethana more positive one. HereIwanteorefereofouraspectsof connoisseurshipwhich,itseemstome, serve to restore to it some of the disciplinary esteemitdeserves.Thefirsttwohave receivedsomeattentionalready;thethird hasbeenmuch discussed,but neverrigor-ously, and never inthe new context I present here;andthefourth,thoughobvious,has received practically no discussion -at least noovertandsystematicdiscussion- at all.The firstrelatestothe epistemological statusof connoisseurship(thoughitalso revealsits disciplinary relations with other fields); the second relates to the interdiscip-linarynature of connoisseurship (though it alsohasto do with its epistemologicalsta-tus, inobvious ways); the third, relating to intuition, places connoisseurship in its neuro-scientificcontext;thefourth,relatingto trust,examinesthe dimensionof connois-seurshipthatisboth socialandcognitive, andthus falls into an equally new field,that of social-cognitivetheory.Ishalldiscuss each of these areas in the briefest terms, not pretendingtothoroughness(anzi!),bur simplyaspointerstotherichpossibilities forreconceivingconnoisseurshipasacore discipline in the humanities. It is easy - and has become very fashion-able - to criticize the verypractice of con-noisseurship. It has had few strong and elo-quentdefendersinrecentyears;but there hasbeen one exceptional one.He comes, at firstsight,fromanunexpectedquarter. CarloGinzburg'svigorousandoriginal defenses of connoisseurship have pointed to bothitshistoricalanditsepistemological significance.Astherealfounderofthe school of what came tobe called microhis-wry(andfromwhichhelaterdistanced himself), Ginzburg showedhowtobuild a large and fascinating narrative, a picture let uscallit, onthe basisof a carefulstudy of particular and - this is significant - highly individual andpeculiarly distinctive docu-ments.Andforhim,asanhistorian,the importance of establishing the veracity and auchenriciry of