The Use of Publicly-Available Data from Antiquities Catalogs for Investigating the Antiquities Market

The Harris School of Public Policy (1155 E. 60th St.)
Room 289A

Join the Neubauer Collegium and the Harris School's Cultural Policy Center for a talk titled "The Use of Publicly-Available Data from Antiquities Catalogs for Investigating the Antiquities Market," with cultural heritage policy expert Dr. Neil Brodie.

For several decades, the major auction houses Sotheby’s, Christie’s and latterly Bonhams have advertized their antiquities’ sales through the publication of illustrated catalogues. These catalogues make publicly-available information about the types and prices of material sold and are considered to offer a window onto the workings of the antiquities market more generally. Data from catalogues have been used to assess the material volume of the antiquities market, the financial value of the market, the flow of looted antiquities through the market, and the impact of regulation on the market. This presentation reviews these uses of auction data for investigating the antiquities market, and presents some new perspectives using a data set collected from the catalogues of Sotheby’s New York and Christie’s London.

Dr. Brodie is Senior Research Fellow in the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research at the University of Glasgow. An archaeologist by training, he has held positions at the British School at Athens, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge, where he was Research Director of the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre, and Stanford University’s Archaeology Center. 

This lecture is part of the Neubauer Collegium's Past for Sale project. Light refreshments will be served.