Grant Period: January 2014–December 2015

This grant supports the accelerated development of a searchable online database of stock books from the Knoedler Gallery Archive. The project enables transcription of 11 Knoedler stock books, from 1872 to 1970, representing approximately 30,000 acquisitions and sales records of paintings, which will be searchable in the database.

The Knoedler Archive is one of the most important resources for research and scholarship on the evolution of the American art market and the formation of the great American museums. It documents the business of one of the country's oldest galleries for more than a century, from 1848 to 1971, and traces shifting American tastes and the changing role of art in American society. In addition to its art-historical significance, the archive provides critical insight into broader economic, social, and cultural histories and into the nation's evolving sense of place in the world.

This two-year database project was originally conceived in conjunction with the Research Institute's collaborative research project An Art Market for America: Dealers, Collectors, Philanthropy and the Formation of American Museums, which traces the early formation of both a new American art market and American museums' collections. As a principal source for the project, the Knoedler stock books database, part of the Getty Provenance Index ®, will be freely available to scholars and the general public for new research and scholarship.